


Shackled

by AnxiousElvishMaiden



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Interspecies Romance, Kidnapping, Macabre, Mythology References, Psychological Horror, Romance, Stalking, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiousElvishMaiden/pseuds/AnxiousElvishMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unfortunate coincidence and a frightening twist of fate, a young archaeologist finds herself the unwitting focus of obsession for a cruel, sadistic and centuries-old monster.<br/>Her mind splintered, torn between reason and emotion and her world coming apart at the seams, the captive of Angels will soon be able to hold one thing as true: </p><p>Things are never as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

_Hungry._  
So hungry.  
How long had it been? One hundred, perhaps two hundred, years since his last good meal? He couldn’t even remember when he had last tasted something satisfying. 

“Edmund! Edmund, have you seen this? Come here, quickly!”   
“Wait a minute, Cass! _Wait!_ For Christ’s sake, this forest is not the easiest of places to carry a fucking tripod through!”  
She rolled her eyes. Fifteen minutes ago, she had told him that the tripod was in fact, collapsible and would easily fit in his rucksack.  
Typical Edmund.  
He’d rather stumble across lattices of twisted ivy, strangled foliage and the corpses of fallen trees, cradling three poles of jutting metal-substitute than actually listen to a piece of her advice.

 _Now he was cold, breaking…unable to feel anything but that same hunger pain._  
His skin was numb. Bound with gripping chains of wrought iron- half rusted and welded into the crevices of his crumbling body. Those damn clerics who had found him.  
Those who had imprisoned him here. Unable to destroy him but obliged by their cause to prevent him from running  free.  
What he would he not give to have them as his next meal? 

Cassidy Albright could not take her eyes from her find, her fingers frantically and tirelessly working to peel threads of ivy from its stunningly carved form- delicate enough not to disturb the already-crumbling stone.  
It was _perfect_.   
“Ok, Cass,” Edmund Potter panted, finally having caught up with her and capable of relieving his aching arms by dumping the tripod on the forest floor. “What’s so bloody amazing that I had to run-… _shit_ …what’s that?”  
“What does it look like, Ed? Quickly! Help me!” 

He immediately ran to her side, following suit and tearing away the creeping vines from the intricate folds of grey.  
“What’s it _doing_ here? This place doesn’t seem like the right place to find-…”  
“Who knows?” Cassidy laughed aloud, her eyes practically brimming with barely contained excitement. “Who cares? What matters is that it’s here and we’ve found it!”

 _Since his exile, he had been condemned to leave their group._  
He had been left alone, out in the open, his body locked and decaying.  
Then the clerics had found him.  
He was slowly starving to death and he could feel it. There was only so long he could go, reduced to the humility of feeding off of birds and animals, foolish enough to take rest on his arms and to seek shelter at his feet.  
  


“It must be over a thousand years old,” marvelled Edmund aloud, putting away his carbon-dating kit. “If not more.”  
“It’s beautiful,” his companion breathed, pulling the last of the tendrils from one of its stalwart limbs. Her brow furrowed when she noticed the chains embedded into its flint-skin surface. She wrapped her fingers around the metal links and ran them slowly downward, finding their source: plunged deep into the ground below. 

Cassidy grunted, giving it several pulls and having nothing to show for her efforts other than raw red palms, she turned to her associate- finally managing to tear her eyes from the statue. “You’d better call Dr Hewitt. Let him know that we’re here. We’ll need to call a team too…to move the statue…”  

_His chains prevented him from moving any further into the forest. He had torn at the chains from the moment his captors had turned their backs. Though at first he had made progress, he soon became too weak to struggle without painfully cracking his own arms._

  
“I’ll get on to that now, Cass,” Edmund murmured, pulling out his walkie-talkie cocking an eyebrow at the manner in which the stone figure was fettered.  “Huh, that’s weird. Who’d want to chain a statue up like that? It’s not like it’s going to go anywhere.” 

Cassidy waved a hand, transfixed by their latest find once more. “To keep it upright? Stop it from being stolen? As part of a ritual? There are endless possibilities. Dr Hewitt will probably know something or other.” 

Hewitt’s assistant shrugged, turning away to make the call and walking over to the other side of the clearing.

Hewitt’s apprentice remained thoroughly beguiled by what they had just come upon. She stooped to scrape excess earth from the flawlessly carved folds of the figure’s garment, revealing more of the smooth, pearl-grey stone. “Amazing,” she breathed. “Simply amazing.” 

 _He had tried screeching for help before- but to little avail._  
The only of his kind who would hear him were the ones that had condemned him to exile in the first place.  
Isolated and famished, he had waited. Freezing. Cold. Emaciated with hunger.  
His kind were known for and almost unrivalled in their levels of patience.  
His desperation had grown over the years, just as the creeping ivy that bound his form or the rust that lined his shackles had. 

_Finally his waiting was over._

Cassidy stood up slowly, wiping the loose dirt from the forearm of the statue, raised to cover its eyes in some kind of mourning gesture.

_The human had wandered willingly into his clearing. No human had been in this part of the woods for years. He would never forget the look in her eyes when she saw him first._  
  


Its eyes were hidden from her view, completely masked by its broad but lithe forearm. She tilted her head, wondering if the sculptor had actually given his or her creation any kind of eyes at all. If it had them, she decided that she wanted to see them.

_As all creatures did when they looked upon his kind, he watched her eyes widen, her body shudder and heard her breath catch in her throat in those first few delicious moments of fear._

__  
It must have been six feet tall- sculpted exactly to the scale of a grown man. Cassidy placed a hand on one of its sculpted shoulders, (telling herself that she was just looking for cracks in the arm joints caused by the chains), running it slowly downward.  
She eventually came to trace the marbled plumage of the figure’s wings.

 _But then she had stopped, suddenly smiling, her eyes alight with glee as she approached him._  
Wonder and curiosity laced each touch she set upon his body.  
He snarled internally, willing her to look away for even a second so that he could take her.  
But her eyes never left him, completely unblinking.  
It was when she called for another human and announced the arrival of more, that greed awoke within him and began to plant the seeds of patience. 

Not looking away from the statue’s face, Cassidy brought her second hand to cup its stone visage- its strong-looking jaw, smooth slate cheek and pronounced chin, cool against her palm.  
“You’re flawless,” she dared herself to whisper again. “Stunning.”  
The apprentice archaeologist smiled again, delighted as her thumb stroked the statue’s cheek.  
“You and I,” she proclaimed. “Are going to do wonderful things together.”

_The angel smirked internally.  
It would not be long now. _

* * *

 

 

 __  
There it was.  
Standing at great height, chains ripped from its arms and the rises of its gracefully curved, stone-feathered wings almost grazing the ceiling of the London Museum of History’s smallest preparation room- stood a statue of an angel.  
Dr Ernst Hewitt inspected it with awe.

“Cassidy, Edmund…this truly is an exceptional find for a first dig,” he praised, circling the statue. “It truly is a stunning piece.” He looked to his assistant and apprentice again, over the rim of his spectacles. “Where exactly did you find it again?”

Cassidy opened her mouth to tell him specifically where _she_ had found it but Edmund cut across her. “In the third quarter, in a clearing just North of the dig site,” he orated, grinning from ear to ear.  
“Mapped and marked the location myself. It was hard enough to get the thing out of the ground, let alone down the mountain side.”

He shrugged, false-modesty radiating from either side of his perfectly pressed suit-jacket.

“The men couldn’t tear the statue from where it was chained in the ground; they thought it might have somehow been bound into the bedrock. So I co-ordinated a careful operation in which we had the chains pulled from its arms. As you can see, the arms are still intact so I’d say our little operation was quite the success. I did the managing for that but it was a great team effort overall, huh Cass?”

Cassidy nodded slowly but suddenly felt the strong urge to give the tagged urn at her feet a good, hard kick. It was so like Edmund to do this to her. His status as Hewitt’s apprentice gave his words seniority over hers.  
As always, if he did something, it was a solo deal whereas if she did something, it was only part of a “team-effort.””

Hewitt was nodding again, absorbing his assistant’s words but his voice remained satisfyingly toneless, much to Cassidy’s joy. “Good work, Potter. Standard dig-out then, yes?”  
He turned to his apprentice. “You did the report and paperwork, Albright?”

She nodded. “Yes, Dr Hewitt.”  
“You’ve inspected the statue thoroughly then?”  
“Yes, Dr Hewitt.”

He clapped his hands, taking a step back and beckoning for her to step forward.  
“Well then. I wouldn’t be a decent teacher of archaeology at all if I did not give you an adequate chance to put all that theory you’ve been studying to the test. What are you readings of the statue, Albright? Its background, for instance.”

Edmund’s lip twitched, his mouth soured by Hewitt’s focus on his subordinate but he remained as silent as the angel that she now gingerly approached.  


“Well, its background is ambiguous at best. The carbon-dating tests performed on the biological matter in the crevices in the angel’s back indicate that the statue itself could be well over one thousand years old.”  
Cassidy’s brow furrowed slightly.  
“That places it before the Renaissance period- of which the statue’s form is most reminiscent- and also the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Tests we performed on the metal residue from the chains indicate that the chain-link is formed from Medieval iron. Despite the obvious shortcomings in hypothesis, this indicates that the chains were attached to the statue long after it was first sculpted. Once again, however, the statue’s style is that of the Renaissance period and is a far cry from the Gothic style that pervaded the Middle Ages…”

Hewitt absent-mindedly chewed on the end of his pencil, scanning his clipboard to confirm the findings as he murmured “The style is almost Da Vincian. The carving and modelling is near flawless.” He looked up. “What of the material the statue is made from?” 

Cassidy slowly ran a hand along the arm of the statue. “The site geologists weren’t sure. They said that it had a marble-like surface but that the stone beneath was far too strong and hard-wearing to be marble of any kind. The results have been sent back to be reviewed.” 

“Potter, make sure that the results of the carbon dating are reviewed and checked too. There’s obviously a small flaw in the dating. Probably an easy one to correct. Albright, what else of the statue? What do you make of its physical design?”

Cassidy lifted her hand from the statue’s stone tricep and bit her lip before continuing. “Once again, Dr Hewitt, it’s…ambiguous. The statue is obviously intended to resemble a seraph or angel of Christian conception…the wings are enough of an indication of that. However, the toga that it wears is distinctly B.C.E Grecian.  
The ethnicity of the statue is difficult to place and we’ve determined that it is not a Greek god as the only candidates, Eros and Apollo, have never been depicted in this manner before.”  
She traced the collar of the toga before going on. “As for its usage, due to its evident neglect, bindings and…posture, we’ve speculated that he make have been a grave marker.” She looked back over her shoulder at Hewitt. “Because he looks like he’s mourning, covering his eyes to weep…”

Hewitt cocked an eyebrow. “ _He_?”  
Cassidy felt her face heat up a little. “Well, y-yes. The statue is very obviously male. I mean, it lacks any kind of indication of female persuasion…broad shoulders, defined jaw, thin-line hips, a lack of, uh, mammary glands…”

From the other side of the room, Edmund coughed and Cassidy was certain that it was to disguise a snort of laughter.   
Hewitt only smiled with mirth. “Very well, Albright.” He looked to the report. “I’ll be making _him_ your project. Edmund will have too much work with the new Triassic exhibit and I’ll be in Scotland for the next month as of Friday. Are you alright to take this one on?”  
“Oh, yes, Dr Hewitt,” Cassidy replied quickly, trying her hardest not to start smiling like a fool.

“ _Woah!_ ” came a little cry from the doorway. “That’s the biggest statue I ever sawed. Ever!”   
Cassidy turned around, only to see her favourite five-year old redhead ogling the angel, her older brother in her wake.

“Hi there, Abbie,” she chuckled, walking over to give her their ritual high-five. “Yep. He’s very big, isn’t he? We found him on the dig this morning. He’s going to be on display in the museum soon. Then you and all the others in the Lil’Diggers club can come and look at him whenever you want!” She ruffled Abbie’s hair, causing her to squeal with glee. “But it looks like you’ve got a special preview, haven’t you?”

“The perks of having a brother who works as a tour guide here,” Leon Drake chortled from behind, his handsome face half-masked by his own silky mop of auburn hair. He let out a low whistle as he gave himself a miniature eye-tour of the angel. “Wow…so that’s the new artefact. Can’t wait to hear all about this one.” He grinned to Cassidy, eyes glowing with admiration. “Awesome find, Cass.”

“Thanks Leon,” she smiled back, taking her place beside Edmund once more and desperately trying to prevent her face from reddening any further. 

_“Thanks Leon!”_ Edmund mocked, elbowing her in the side.  
Cassidy carefully waited until Abbie, Hewitt and Leon all had their backs turned before sharply elbowing him back and sticking her tongue out at him.

“Are you coming home now, Cass?” Leon asked. “Oakside is on the route back to mine so Abbie and I could give you a lift back. It’s a bit too dark to walk.”  
Cassidy shook her head. “Thanks a bunch for the offer but by the looks of it, I’ll be here until sunrise, dating the statue.”

Abbie interjected with a giggle. _“Dating the statue?!_ You can’t go on a date with a statue, silly Cassy!”  
The four adults laughed and Cassidy stooped to give the little girl a hug. “I mean I’ll be figuring out how old the statue is. He’s also still broken in places so I’ll have to restore him. Remember how you learned about restoring in Lil’Diggers club?”  


Abbie nodded, looking at the statue over Cassidy’s shoulder.  
“Why don’t you just ask him?”  
“Hm?”  
“The angel. Just ask him how old he is.”  
Cassidy laughed again. “Abbie! You know statues can’t talk.”  
“Well, this one can move,” Abbie proclaimed. “He moves when you’re not looking.”

Quickly and automatically, Hewitt, Leon, Edmund and Cassidy all looked over at the angel.  
No. It was in the same position as before. Still standing, one arm draped over its eyes.  
“No, I don’t think it does, Abbie,” Leon told her, chuckling as he took his little sister’s hand. “Come on then, kiddo, let’s head home then. Wave bye bye.”  
Abbie shook hands with Hewitt and waved to Edmund and Cassidy and paused before waving at the statue too.

“He’s kind of creepy. He’s watching all the time.”  
“Who is, Abbie?”  
“The angel.”  
“Abbie, the angel is just a statue. Now come on, let’s head home.”

Moments after they left, Edmund was the first to break the silence between the three archaeologists as they trawled through paperwork. “So, Cass. Got a name for it yet?”

“Name for what?”  
“The statue, obviously. If it’s your project, you’ll have to give the exhibit some kind of name.”  
Cassidy paused thoughtfully. “Well…it takes the form of an angel…and it appears as though it’s weeping…so then maybe…”

“Yes?”

“The crying angel?”

Edmund shook his head. “That sounds clunky and stupid. Come up with a better name than that.”  
Before Cassidy could retort, Hewitt spoke. 

“Potter, I need you to come with me to check this carbon dating again. There’s something wrong with the sample that you took. The dates I’m getting go back much further than any era that could have produced that kind of artwork…” 

His assistant nodded, heading out of the preparation room.  
“I’ll be back later to help you with the final dating, Albright,” Hewitt informed her. “But I’ll have to leave you for an hour or so, first.”  
“That’s fine, Dr Hewitt.”

“Oh, before I forget. Albright?”  
“Yes?”  
“There was a mistake on the report. In the description section.”

“A mistake, Dr Hewitt?”

“Yes. You described the angel as having its left arm draped over its eyes.” Hewitt pointed to the angel with the butt of his pencil. “As you can see, that is clearly its right arm it has over its eyes.”

Cassidy blinked, certain she hadn’t gotten that wrong before but shook her head, shrugging. “Oh. Sorry, Dr Hewitt…I’ll correct that straightaway. My mind must have been somewhere else earlier.”  

 _“Though I could’ve sworn,”_ she thought with a frown, examining the statue again. _“That it was the left.”_

* * *

 

Night had long stolen over the museum.  
The security guards had begun their rounds and most of its locked hallways had already been plunged into blackness, the exhibits nothing more than strange silhouettes and outlines.  


Dr Hewitt looked over Cassidy’s shoulder, yawning slightly. “You’re doing very well, Albright.” The older man scratched his head, chuckling slightly. “I have no idea how on earth you manage to stay so alert, so late in the evening. Aren’t you getting tired?”

The young woman shook her head, adding another coat of hardening resin to the angel’s half-covered brow. “No, Doctor Hewitt,” she replied with a smile, not taking her eyes from the glossy grey sheen that followed each stroke of her brush. “When you’re in love with your work as I am, it’s hard to tire of it.”

Hewitt shook his head, still chortling slightly.  
“You remind me of a younger, prettier, more optimistic version of myself.” He turned to file the paperwork away. “Such a pity about this darned dating. I shall have to take the results with me to Glasgow to see if Professor McIntosh can make head or tails of this. In the meantime, just tell the outfitters to leave the dating plaque blank and get the guides to contrive some spiel about how our enigmatic statue is currently being in the process of being dated.”

Cassidy nodded, puckering her lips and lightly blowing on the angel’s forehead to aid the drying of the resin.  
Hewitt lifted his head once more.  
“Just five more weeks and your apprenticeship here is over, isn’t it, Albright? Have you considered accepting the offer from Dr Rosenstock? Being trained to become her assistant is quite the opportunity. It would also ultimately allow you to continue working here in London, even if the first year of training is in Ireland.”

“I’ve thought about it, yes,” she said slowly, dipping her brush once again and delicately lining the angel’s hairline before starting on the intricate curves, depressions and lifts of each knuckle on his hand. “I…uh…I don’t know yet. I’m rather busy at home at the moment. Leaving for Dublin for an entire year mightn’t be a good move for me.”  

Hewitt’s forehead creased, coughing slightly and putting down his pencil. The two had endured this conversation before.  
“I see,” he said slowly after a few moments. “How is your mother doing nowadays, if you do not mind me asking?”    
Cassidy’s stomach tightened and the paintbrush hovered over the line that it had just painted, her hand turning rigid and her teeth clenching. “Mum?” she echoed, trying her hardest to sound flippant. “She…she’s far better than she was before. Still a little weak but she’s sparky as ever.”

A brief image of her mother, lying in bed and watching television flashed before her eyes like a broken frame from a silent film. An actor came out with a funny line on _Coronation Street_ and her mother laughed melodically, her jocular, wrinkled face lighting up with each note.  
Suddenly her laughter dissolved into coughing. Horrible, hacking coughs, half-strangled by nets of the phlegm that coated Maria Albright’s severely weekend windpipe. 

She looked up to her daughter, noticing her standing in the doorway for the first time. Trying desperately to draw her breath, she grinned at the child she had taken to the museum every Saturday and told her the story behind every painting, sculpture and dinosaur’s bone.  
 _“That’s what I get for laughing at such awful jokes, huh, Cassy?”_

“Ah, that is good to hear,” Hewitt murmured, starting to file the documents away. “And your father, Albright?”

“Fine,” Cassidy said sharply. Maybe a little too sharply. “He’s fine.”  
The lie burned in her mouth but she swallowed back quickly, ignoring the feeling of repulsion that was bubbling in her throat.    
She felt Dr Hewitt’s hand upon her shoulder, squeezing slightly before stroking the light wool of her sweater. “That’s good to hear, Albright.” The older man paused for a moment before saying. “If you ever feel you need to take some time off for any personal reason at all-…” 

Cassidy turned, forcing herself to smile. “Thank you, Dr Hewitt. I understand but I…I really feel like I need to keep working at the moment. Just to keep myself busy.”

Hewitt returned the strained smile and nodded. “I see. Not a problem. I have always admired your professionalism, I must say. I’m just going to head down to the cataloguing room for a moment. Could you finish off that main report and fix the descriptive error?”

“Sure thing,” Cassidy responded, sighing as her teacher left and leaning over the table to start writing up the new descriptive section. “Alright, alright…come on, no stressing about this. Right…right arm draped over the angel’s eyes…”  
Just as she had hoped it would, her mind soon wandered away from her parents and back to her work. Specifically her beguiling angel statue. 

Did the statue have eyes at all? Had the artist carved them at all? It appeared so lifelike.  
Cassidy desperately wanted to know the name of the sculptor as she delicately pencilled “anonymous” into the section on the artist’s information. She also very much wanted to know the name of the _model_.  
Despite the eeriness that seemed to radiate from the statue, it also radiated power, commanded reverence…and was truly gorgeous in appearance.  


The preparation room was completely silent.  
She couldn’t even hear the echoes of Dr Hewitt tapping around in the cataloguing room anymore. 

Cassidy felt an involuntary shiver run through her and what felt like a cold breeze drifted over her. She blinked, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck slowly standing erect and her shoulder muscles tensing and twitching.  
She suddenly felt something burning on the back of her neck. 

Eyes.  
A sudden, inexplicable paranoia washed over her.  
Someone was staring at her.  
Cassidy stood up straight, her entire body seizing.  
Someone standing in this very room was staring at her.

She whipped around suddenly, only to see that the room was empty save for herself and the angel statue- which was still standing exactly where it had always been.  
Cassidy’s eyes locked on to the statue immediately, her heart still racing and her breath only just returning to her lungs. It was only when she heard the rattling of her bracelet against the wood of the table she leaned against, that she realised she was shaking all over.

“A little creepy, is it not?”  
Cassidy jumped, letting out an involuntary cry and turning puce when she realised that Doctor Hewitt had just re-entered the room.  
“Oh…uh…D-Doctor?”  
He went on, following her gaze back to the statue and chortling. “I know how mesmerising but utterly creepy these anthromorphic statues can be. My very first statue - the one of Poseidon on the first floor, you know, Albright? – used to royally terrify me. I rather hated to be left alone with it.”

Cassidy laughed a little, shrugging and desperately trying to cool the blush in her cheeks. “Y-Yes well…I…I don’t mind so much. Th-this statue…well, he’s…uh…he’s beautiful.”  
Dr Hewitt nodded in agreement. “Well, yes. The artistry behind the statue is nothing short of superb but just as a note as your teacher, Albright,” he said, looking to her. “It is generally considered unprofessional to refer to a statue as being male or female.”

Cassidy’s de-blushing mission promptly ended in failure. “Uh…yes. Yes, Dr Hewitt. Of course.”

The doctor of archaeology took up her report and gave it a quick scan, adjusting his glasses. “Ah, I see you’ve made all the necessary corrections here. Very good.” He let out a long exhale. “Well, it would appear that we’re done here for the night, Albright. Time to head home. First we’ll lock everything up and-…”

He paused, patting his jacket down. “Oh dear, I appear to have left my keys in the cataloguing room. I shall fetch them before I file these reports.” 

“Oh, I’ll get your keys for you Dr Hewitt,” Cassidy said quickly, desperately wanting to get out of the room to let the colour drain from her cheeks before she made a further farce of herself in front of her superior again.  
Not even staying in the room to accept his gratitude, the young apprentice archaeologist hurried down to the cataloguing room, only to find his keys on the main table, glinting in the low light. 

“I am an idiot,” she thought, snatching up the keys and knuckling her forehead. “I just called a statue beautiful. I just referred to a statue as a “he” in front of my boss. I am a complete and utter fool. I’ll be lucky if he ever looks at me as a rational human being again.”

Cassidy returned to the preparation room, calling out. “Dr Hewitt! I found your keys. Do you want me to start locking up while you-…?”  
But the preparation room was empty.  
She looked around for a bit, shouting for Hewitt but to little avail.

He was completely gone.  
“ _Where is he?_ ” Cassidy thought frantically as she shoved her work materials back into her bag. 

She took a breath, trying to steady herself and to inject some rationality into the situation.  
“He probably left in a hurry after a call from Ed or from McIntosh or Stanford or something. He’s an aloof man like that,” she told herself aloud, shrugging her bag on to her shoulder. “He’d call or text if there was any major issue.” She groaned. “And of course, he’d leave _all_ of the locking up to me.”

She did one last lap of the preparation room, checking for Hewitt but there was no one else in there but her.  


But her and the angel.

Cassidy found herself staring intently at it and walking over to it, picking up a dry towel and dabbing the excess varnish from its neck. “Do you know where the Doctor ran off to?” she asked softly, smiling a little. “Maybe he got a little creeped out by you and ran away?” She laughed, putting the towel down. “Can’t see why he would though. I still think you’re beautiful. Hm, I’ll see you again tomorrow then, I guess. Then we’ll see about getting those huge cracks filled and soon you’ll be nice and strong again.”

She left the room, still smiling away to herself as she locked the door.  


Unseen to her, the angel smiled too.

 

  


  



	2. II

_She looked around the cavern where she stood. There was barely any light; just enough cracks in the ceiling, just enough pale, strangled sunlight straining through to illuminate the gleaming stone floor, glossed and wet from the dripping stalactites from above. The whole cave seemed so huge and hollow, darkness surrounding her on all sides.  
Despite having never been there before, she somehow knew that she was not alone. _

Cassidy Albright yawned in her sleep, her brow furrowing as she stretched.

_“It always watches. They are always watching.”_

She buried her head into the crook of her arm, seeking further comfort.

_“It’s always following. They are all always following. Always fast. Always silent.”_

Her body quivered as a wind leaking from the preparation room window drew across her.

_“It is more than what it appears.”_

Her hands slowly clenched into fists, her thumb binding her fingers and her fingernails digging deep trenches into her palms.

_“It is not what it seems.”_

Her teeth clenched a little, her tongue rubbing against the roof of her mouth.

_“But its true form is only revealed when your back is turned.”_

Cassidy murmured something in her sleep, her forehead creasing.

_“Don’t look away. Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead.”_

She bit down on her lip, shuddering and her fingers tangling in her hair.

_“I am sorry but it is coming for you.”_

With a snort and a sharp inhale, Cassidy awoke, realising that she had fallen asleep at her work desk for the third time that morning.   
She swore under her breath, peeling one of the report sheets from her forehead and sitting up straight. “Ugh…I need more coffee.” She yawned, fumbling for the Styrofoam cup and grunting in annoyance when she realised that her pen had burst and was now leaking ink all over the table. “Bite me. Just bite me.”   
She stretched her arms and turned around, only to the see the angel statue towering behind her.   
Right where she had left it.

Cassidy smiled up at the mighty stone seraph, swallowing back another groggy yawn and wiping her eyes. “Right so. I’m going to treat myself to another black coffee and then when I get back here, we can get started on fixing you up a little more.”

It was only as she was leaving, that she felt as though she was being watched.

* * *

 

Cassidy kneeled at the statue’s feet, running her gloved hands along the deep and delicate folds of the angel’s toga. Her eyes were locked on every inch of flawless, ashen stone as she tirelessly smoothed clear polish all over the stone. She had spent almost all of the morning either bruising her knees or breaking her back trying to restore the statue. It had cracks, crevices and dents in its broad arms from the chains. Not to mention the vast quantity of long jagged fissures that its skin was laden with.   
She had worked hard, filling each of the cracks with rock plaster to strengthen the statue  and delicately painting over the dried rock with polish and varnish to further protect the statue.

“Afternoon, Cass,” Edmund saluted as he wandered into the preparation room. He let out a long whistle. “Ah, our angel mate seems to be looking well, doesn’t he?” He chuckled. “I’m impressed. This is good work for a rookie.”

“Thanks for your high praise, oh almighty god of restoration,” the apprentice muttered tonelessly, not looking up. “Did Dr Hewitt check in with you this morning, Ed? I haven’t seen him all day and he’s due to call in to see me.”

“Hewitt?” Edmund questioned, cocking an eyebrow. “No. He didn’t. I thought he would have been with you all morning to sort out this angel exhibit thing.”   
“So you haven’t seen him at all today?”   
“No. ‘Fraid not.” 

Cassidy sighed, knitting her brows as she worked on polishing the statue. “It was so weird. He left the museum last night without locking up. He didn’t even wait for me.”   
“

No offence, Cass, but you’re not exactly the _Queen_ or anything. It’s not expected of Hewitt to look after you.” 

She turned to look up at Edmund, rolling her eyes. “I know _that_ , Ed. I had his keys though. I didn’t think he’d leave without those. Had to turn them into the reception desk this morning and when I checked at lunch time, he still hadn’t collected them.” She sighed. “He just…he just disappeared. I was only away for a second and I didn’t even hear him leave. This isn’t like Hewitt.”   
Edmund pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment before waving a hand and shaking his head. “I wouldn’t care so much. I mean, I’ve worked with Hewitt for eight years and he’s always been a flighty fellow. Besides, he has that conference thing in Glasgow. Maybe he got called up early or something and had to head up last night…”

“Well supposing that were true, why hasn’t he been answering my e-mails? Or why hasn’t he called or texted?”   
Edmund either chose to ignore the question or he truly didn’t give a toss, for he certainly did not answer her. Instead he reached out to pat the wing of the statue. “Well, this thing is looking good.”

Quick as a flash, Cassidy swatted his hand away. “No. Don’t touch it. It’s still drying.”   
Edmund raised his hands in a quick surrender, biting back a laugh. “Ooh, someone’s possessive over her precious statue. Alright, kid, I’ll back off and won’t lay a hand on Mr Angel here.”

“The plaster and varnish are still drying,” she retorted. “I don’t want you getting your fingerprints all over the statue’s surface.” Cassidy grimaced. “Curator Stanford would go bonkers again if he found another flawed exhibit on display. Remember the Roman fresco incident?”   
In unison, the two museum workers shuddered and Edmund frowned, nodding. “Good point. You’re still mad about that angel though.”

“W-well, it’s my first exhibition project. I really want it to be perfect.”   
“Whatever you say. It looks better than yesterday anyway. It can go on display soon.”   
“ _He_ can go on display soon. Calling him an “it” makes him sound like a statue of a bug or something.”  
“Did you think of a better name?”   
“Hm?”  
“For…the…statue?” Edmund repeated slowly, as if talking to a child.   
“Michael.”   
“Michael? That sounds…commonplace.”   
Cassidy rolled her eyes. “You ungodly philistine. Michael is supposed to be the name of God’s head angel. The archangel, you know? I don’t know whether or not this statue was supposed to be of _il Archangelo Michaelangelo_ but the name rather suits him, I think.”   


“So…you want to name the statue…like the whole exhibit… _Michael_?” Edmund’s eyebrows slowly disappeared up behind his long, pale blonde fringe.   
“Yes, that is exactly what I intend to do. I think it’s a great name and Hewitt gave this project to me, so I can call the exhibit whatever I want.”

Edmund was quiet for a moment. Cassidy couldn’t see whether or not he was pulling a face at her or just concocting his next subtle jab at her professionalism but she could feel his eyes on her.   
Regardless, she did not take her eyes away from the statue, taking up her soft-bristle brush and using it to delicately dust excess grit and powder from “Michael’s” joints and hollows.   


“Need a hand?” Edmund finally asked.   
“No,” Cassidy responded quickly and firmly.   
“…do you think maybe you should take a lunch-break?”   
“No. I’m fine.”   
Another moment of tense silence hung between them before disgruntled sounding Edmund finally bid her a farewell and left.

Cassidy sighed, standing up and shaking her head. She gently dusted the bridge of the angel’s nose, smiling faintly. “He must think I’m terribly rude…and you must think I’m terribly rude too.” She laughed, switching to her fan brush to get some of the smaller pieces of grit. “Just tell me if I’m tickling you.” The angel’s eyes remained hidden behind his eyes, his lips softly parted and he was silent as ever. 

“You’re a good listener, Michael, you know that? The pottery I usually talk to normally can’t shut the hell up.”   
Cassidy sighed. “I’ll bet you think I’m rude _and_ pathetic now. Well, to rectify one of those points of assumption, I don’t always blow Edmund off and I know that he is, admittedly, a rather nice guy.” She lightly ran a finger along a line of plaster to make sure that it had hardened sufficiently. “He’s just _always_ trying to steal my thunder. I know he’s pretending to take interest in you but in reality, as always, he’s just annoyed that I’m getting a little more of the spotlight than usual.”

Her brow furrowed and she found herself automatically resting her forehead against the cool, stone chest of the angel. The statue was much sturdier than she thought it would be. “It’s never good enough for him to just have a higher-paid and higher-ranked job than me; he just _has_ to one-up me no matter what we do.” 

She looked up into the angel’s face, imagining that she could see his eyes and that somehow he was smiling at her. “Well, not this time, Michael. This time, I’m in the limelight, this is _my_ project and Edmund Potter is not going to weasel his way into it so that he can take all of the credit.”   
A slight smirk came to her lips and Cassidy found herself playfully cupping the angel’s face and tilting her face upward so that her soft, crinkled pink lips were just centimetres away from the angel’s perfectly chiselled, polished grey ones. “And maybe I secretly don’t want him anywhere near you because I’m terribly jealous and I just _love_ our alone-time together.”

“Albright! What exactly are you doing?” 

Cassidy turned with a yelp, dropping her fan brush in shock, only to see Curator Stanford’s pinch-faced assistant Sybil Darrow standing behind her.   
“M-Miss Darrow…I…I, uh, I…was just… _checking_ the statue for…hairline cracks.”

The thin woman wrinkled her nose slightly, her horse-like jaw clenching as she looked down her nose at the younger archaeologist. “Of _course_ you were, Albright.” She clicked her tongue, placing a hand on her hip. “Need I remind you that artefacts for display in the museum should not be treated as playthings? Or have your forgotten?”

Cassidy nodded, feeling her neck grow extremely hot as she bent her head. “Y-yes, M-Miss Darrow.”   
Darrow smirked cruelly, rolling her eyes. “And I’d invest myself less in my work, if I were you, Albright. Some of the staff have noted that you’ve become rather…obsessive in regards to that statue.”

 _“Fuck you, Edmund Potter,”_ thought Cassidy in both annoyance and utter humiliation, though she stayed quiet and continued to nod like a stupid, little bobble-head.    
“I have just come here,” Darrow went on. “To notify you that the podium for your exhibit has been cleared. It is on the fourth floor in the second room. You must check it out immediately and fill out a report for Mr Stanford before the unveiling of the statue next week. I would suggest that you do this _immediately_. I shall await your return and then we can discuss your…evident misconduct.” She let out a low snort of laughter. “I shall keep the statue company whilst you are gone, Albright.”

“Yes.”   
This was all Cassidy Albright could muster before leaving the room. She hated that she had no other choice than to abide by Darrow’s orders and could not give the slightest of rebukes to her constant chiding. The woman was nothing more than a snooty bully, as far as Cassidy was concerned.   
“At least Edmund has his good days when he’s not trying to prove he’s better than me,” she thought glumly, taking the elevator to the fourth floor. “That old cow is perpetually doing everything she can to make me miserable and I’ve done bugger all to her since I got here.”

The exhibition space was actually quite impressive. There was a small podium with steps in front of it that Michael would be displayed upon. It was backdropped by a crimson velvet curtain, crowned by small floodlights and a thin golden plaque was mounted on the wall beside the podium with a blank space for names and dates to be carved. 

Cassidy couldn’t help but smile, knowing that very soon, her name would be on that plaque and Michael would be on that podium. Then the two of them would be in the spotlight for the whole of the world to admire. 

On the way back to the elevator, she heard someone calling out to her.   
“Oi, Cass!”   
Cassidy turned and grinned to her favourite security guard. “Hi Omar. What’s up?”   
“Not much,” he shrugged and then grinned. “I’ve heard that you’ve got an exhibit of your own. A certain angel statue?”   
Cassidy felt her face turn pink for the umpteenth time that day. “Ah yes, well…I really hop that its well received. Hewitt entrusted me with a lot and I don’t want to let him down.”

Omar winked. “No better woman for the job. Hey, just wondering, has anything odd happened to the security cameras in the prep rooms?”   
She raised her eyebrows. “No. Not that I’d notice anyway, really. I’m not exactly a tech wiz. Why?”   
Omar groaned. “All over the museum, the cameras have been going haywire. Just randomly turning on and off and suddenly getting zapped of all battery power. Darrow came complaining about it this morning and the old nag won’t get off my back until I’ve sorted it out.”   
“Don’t the security staff have _any_ idea what’s causing the cameras to go funny? I mean could it just be a glitch in the system or kids fooling around.”   
“Not a clue. Kids aren’t smart enough to pull off something like this and if it were a glitch, the webmaster would have found it by now. And we’re not able to get an electrician from the company in until Tuesday. Darrow knows that and she’s still being a pain in the ass about it. Typical of her, eh?”   

“Yeah, that sounds like Darrow, alright.” Cassidy frowned. “Speaking of the devil, she’s waiting for me in the preparation room right now.”   
“Ah, best not keep her waiting so. The old bat might find something else to complain about,” Omar grunted, taking out his torch and preparing for his evening shift. “Best of luck with the exhibit, Cass.”

“Thanks Omar!” she called over her shoulder as she headed back to the room. “Good luck sorting out the cameras! I’ll let you know if I notice anything strange!”

Reluctantly, Cassidy made her way back to the preparation room, taking a deep breath to calm herself before grasping the brass knob and opening the door.   
The first thing to strike her was the silence in the room. The complete and total silence.   
No clacking of high heels, no tapping of a pen against a clipboard, no impatient tongue clicking.

The first thing that her eyes fell upon was her fan brush.   
She could remember dropping the delicate tool at the angel’s feet when Sybil Darrow had walked in on her “interactions” with him.   
However the brush was no longer at the angel’s feet.   
It was now resting on the angel’s outstretched palm, balancing delicately across the bridge of his thumb. The other arm remained draped across his eyes, apparently shielding his tearful eyes from the world.

Darrow, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Cassidy’s mind began to race.   
Her first absurd thought was that Darrow was playing some kind of strange practical joke on her, placing her brush in the hand of the angel and then hiding behind a shelf to see her reaction. Taking this into account, the young woman calmly walked into the room and looked around carefully. No one was in the room. No one but her and the angel. 

Feeling heavy _déjà vu_ resounding from the night before, Cassidy called out, “Miss Darrow? Hello? Are you there?”   
_Hadn’t she said that she’d wait for her in the preparation room? Or had she said to meet in a different room?_

Feeling paranoid and not wanting to allow Darrow to reprimand her twice in one day, Cassidy quickly fumbled for her mobile phone and dialled the assistant curate’s number.   
She lifted the phone to her ear and waited for the dial tone but then jumped, letting out a cry when she heard a rhythmic vibration from somewhere in the room.

She found Darrow’s phone under one of the shelves.   
“What the absolute fuck?” Cassidy murmured under her breath, taking up the phone.   
How had the phone gotten there?   
The phone had slid pretty far back beneath the shelves. There was no way she could have just accidently let it fall under there. It would have had to be kicked or thrown across the floor or would have had to have dropped it in quite a hurry.

Cassidy swallowed, slowly rising and placing the phone on the work-table.   
“Maybe she’ll come back for it later…”   
She took a few more deep breaths, carefully soothing herself as her mother had conditioned her to, whenever she felt any kind of anxiety.   
Chiding aside, Cassidy decided, if Darrow really wanted to talk to her about something, surely she’d come looking for her in the preparation room after a few minutes had passed? 

Deciding that this was the best option for the moment, Cassidy took a quick swig from the water-bottle on her desk and set about cleaning up her things. She wandered back over to the statue and delicately took the brush from his outstretched hand. She was still in deep confusion about why Darrow would have put it there in the first place.    


“Thank you,” she said softly, smiling a little as she placed it aside. “You’re such a gentleman, picking that up for me.”   
Exhaling and finally allowing her heart-rate to steady, Cassidy placed the brush aside and back into her leather archaeologist’s wallet.   
“I can just stay here until eleven and wait for her to get back. That’s when the guards change so she should be back by at least then,” she told herself. “And if she doesn’t come back…” She looked to the statue with another slight smile. “…at least I can say that I spent the evening doing something worthwhile.” 

* * *

 

Cassidy dipped the sponge back into the bucket, letting the warm, soapy water soak back up into the pores and enjoying the heat of the water as it lapped against her skin.   


She had been kneeling in front of the statue for almost two hours now. She washed the stone with the greatest care, scrubbing away at every last inch of hardened grit, grime and dirt. She worked her hands to the bone, her wrists aching and the soft pads of her fingers, wrinkling.   
Yet she did not stop for a moment.   
Her knees hurting and her back strained, she finally managed to bring herself to stand. She massaged the warm water into the angel’s form, trying her hardest to make the stone shine.   
Cassidy couldn’t explain it but the statue was starting to look better, stronger and almost, _healthier_.

“A lot of people are going to see you on display tomorrow, Michael. Don’t worry though. They’ll all be blown away by how stunning you look. In a week’s time, we’ll also be hosting a big ceremony and throwing a big party to celebrate you coming to us here in the museum.”

She smiled, glad that her work was starting to pay off already.  
She switched to a soft rag in order to work on Michael’s softer, facial details like the perfect curves of his lips, nose and his extremely detailed fingers.   
The artist had even gone as far as to carve the individual shapes of the finger bones beneath the skin, knuckles and fingernails.

“If I only I knew who carved you,” Cassidy whispered, gingerly cleaning the bridge of his nose. “You’re so realistic…and such a mystery.”    
She felt something strange wash over her as she looked into the face of the angel- a kind of extreme reverence and fear mixed with a terrible sense of longing.    
She felt herself shudder. It was as though part of her wanted to run away from the statue as quickly as possible and the other part wanted to never look away from it.   
It was only after she had washed the statue twice further and dried the stone with a heat rod that she finally managed to tear her eyes away from it and to lock up for the night.

Darrow never came looking for her.

* * *

 

 _In the darkness of the preparation room and not under the direct sight of any living creature, he found himself free to move again._  
Free from the effects of the quantum lock.  
His evolution-enhanced eyes sliced through the shadows and he flexed his fingers, feeling his epidermal stone become flesh once more.  
He moved to the door, lighting tapping the handle with a single finger to see that it was locked. 

_He was not trying to escape._  
If he had wanted to escape, he could have done that last night. He could have smashed through the door had he wanted to or he could have easily shattered every window in the room to facilitate his leaving.   
However, this was not necessary. 

_After devouring the old male human’s years, he had contemplated leaving and relishing his newfound freedom.  
It was insulting and infuriating to think that the humans thought they could imprison in this “gallery of curios” of sorts and rage boiling beneath his skin, he was about to escape. _

_But then, a truly evil idea entered his mind._

_Remaining in this place gave him infinite access to humans._  
Humans who would walk willingly into the compass of his predatorial needs.   
Feeding off of the older female that day had been proof of that. 

_His kind had long primed themselves to go long periods of time without eating. One meal every few months was usually a normal diet. As such, the promise of a steady stream of victims each day seemed a tantalising prospect._   
  


_And the little female human.  
Oh **his** young human girl.  _

_How she entertained him._

_He had initially been eager to take her life years.  
Such a young, healthy child with a promising life, she was. _

_Soon, though, his intentions for her had slowly grown more and more malicious.  
Like all of his kind and most of the wider galaxy, he regarded humans as nothing more than greedy, self-glorified vermin- only good for food and sadistic entertainment. _

_Yet this human seemed to worship him simply for existing._  
She did not stare at him in unblinking fear but in naïve and childish wonder. She was like his personal slave. She washed him, she repaired the cracks in his stone skin, her presence brought him so many good meals.   
Her circle of friends alone seemed to be tempting menu, not to mention these “lots of other people” she had promised to bring him. 

_She was a neverending source of entertainment too._  
Her constant, bubbly chatter was pathetically amusing.   
What had she recently dubbed him? Michael, was it not?  
Her skittering around, awkwardness and occasional clumsily worded rambles were nothing short of hilarious.   
Her ignorance of the danger she was in was particularly, deliciously comical. 

_It partly disgusted him, but he also quite enjoyed her touch and the way she was eternally fussing about his wellbeing._

_None of his kind, in the history of their species had ever had a **slave** human.   
A **pet** human. _

_The evil thought had grown in his already malevolent mind and soon he was firmly set upon this scheme._

_“Oh yes, Cassidy Albright,” he thought, smirking and revealing his sharply curved fangs as he ran his fingers over the leather wallet of brushes that she had left on the table. He remembered the way she had shyly taken the brush from his hand. His little mouse was always in such awe of him- even if she did not yet know a thing of his true powers. His thoughts had truly dissolved into the very depths of the dark and the depraved and he snarled hungrily, thinking of their delightful future together.  
“I will soon possess you child. In mind. In soul. And in body.” _

 

__  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I hope you've enjoyed reading!   
> Thank you very much for your time! :)


	3. III

_Sent: 12/10/12 13:40  
To: _[_Hewitt_DoctorofArchaeology@gmail.net_](mailto:Hewitt_DoctorofArchaeology@gmail.net) _  
Cc: _[_cassyrosebright@hotmail.com_](mailto:cassyrosebright@hotmail.com)  
Subject: The New Exhibit 

_Dear Dr Hewitt,_   
  


_Firstly, I apologise for my persistence and I hope that your trip to Glasgow is going well. I am aware that this is my sixth e-mail; however as your humble apprentice and student, I would feel much more at ease at the upcoming exhibition if you were present there._  
Curator Stanford has asked me to re-issue my invitation to you. Please find this attached to this e-mail. Provided that you have already received it, I would be very much obliged if you could send an RSVP receipt in return to clarify this.   
I realise that you are probably very busy at the moment but even some criticism or advice regarding the exhibition would be very helpful to me. I have a few questions regarding the final stages of the restoration process and whether or not the resin and plaster should be working quickly over a period of forty eight hours. Should I send you a few attached photographs of the restored statue?  I also need you to send me the results of the revised dating tests- something which Curator Stanford has also been insistent about.  
Once again, I apologise for my persistence and hope that your research is going well.   
Thank you for taking the time to read this e-mail and I hope to hear from you soon. 

_Yours sincerely,  
Cassidy Albright _

 

* * *

 

“He hasn’t been returning my e-mails.”   
“Who hasn’t?” Louisa Fitzhugh, the museum’s resident receptionist asked, looking up from her computer screen to the apprentice archaeologist who was sitting cross-legged on her desk.   
Usually Louisa wouldn’t have tolerated Cassidy’s chosen perch, (“If the kids aren’t allowed to do it, Cass, neither are you.”), but it was three hours before opening and the receptionist could tell when her best friend was stressed out enough to be allowed to break the rules.

“Hewitt,” Cassidy said, swallowing back another yawn and massaging her temples. “This is really unlike him. Seriously. I mean he’s been slow to reply before but he’s never _ignored_ my e-mails entirely. I mean usually after my second e-mail, he sends me something telling me to shut up and _stop_ e-mailing him.”   
Louisa closed down her Facebook page and frowned. “So what are you going to do about the opening of the angel statue exhibit next week?”  
“I dunno,” Cassidy shrugged, taking a long, deep breath when she realised the implications of his absence for the first time. “I guess, I’m just going to have to give the opening speech and presentation without Dr Hewitt.” Her eyes widened. “I’m a little freaked out about this.”  

“Couldn’t you ask Edmund to do it?” Louisa suggested, absent-mindedly re-arranging the announcement cards beneath the counter. “Or at least to help you with it?”   


“Oh no, no, _no_ ,” Cassidy immediately retorted. “He is _not_ getting involved in this. No matter how much he wants to.”  She wrinkled her nose. “He’s always fucking trying to pull the spotlight away from me. He just can’t stand that I’ve finally managed to get one up on him and he just _has_ to outdo me. I’m getting sick of it.”   
Cassidy ran her fingers through her hair, agitated as she looked back to her friend. “He’s been a proper ass to me lately too. He went off complaining about me to Darrow yesterday.”   


“Complaining? About what?”   
“Apparently everyone thinks I’m getting too attached to the statue. Darrow seemed to think I was practically fawning over it like a lover.” Cassidy lowered her gaze, looking into her lap.  


Louisa gave her a bemused smile, cocking an eyebrow.

“Weren’t you though? Everyone in the staff knows how obsessed you are with it, Cass, babe.”   


Cassidy looked up, her eyes widening. “Everyone o-on the staff th-thinks that?” She snorted indignantly, rolling her eyes. “Well, _obviously_ I care greatly about the statue. I mean this is the first big find I’ve ever had. But I’m not obsessed with it or anything, Lou. Come on, it’s just a statue.”

She said this all very fast and did not quite meet the receptionist’s eyes as she said it. It was Louisa who decided to change the subject.   


“Ed’s probably just jealous. I can see why.”   


Cassidy cocked an eyebrow. “Ed? Jealous? His job is better paid and of higher status than mine. I’m only getting a little more attention than usual because of this one weensy exhibit. And he’s opened and presented what? Like forty exhibits before? Why on earth does that give him the right to be jealous of me?”   


Louisa gave a low chuckle, her eyes lidded as she leaned forward on one elbow. “I didn’t say I thought he was jealous of _you_ , dullard. I reckon he’s jealous of _Leon._ ”   
  
Her companion coughed, suddenly feeling her neck heat up. “L-Leon? Leon Drake? The tour guide guy? Why would Edmund Potter be jealous of him?”   
Louisa’s lip-glossed smirk widened. “ _Becau_ se,it’s so bloody obvious that you have the biggest crush ever on Leon and Edmund is jealous because he knows that better than anyone.”

Cassidy barked with laughter. “You think Edmund actually li-? Oh God, Lou. The only reason Ed would take any interest in me is if he thought I was muscling in on _his_ job.” She placed a hand on the back of her neck, hoping that she’d cool down soon. “And I do _not_ have a crush on Leon…”   
  
Louisa held up her hands in surrender, now laughing madly at her friend’s embarrassment. “Oh, I think you do, Cass! And speaking of the devil…” She looked over Cassidy’s shoulder, suddenly beaming. “Morning, Leon.”     
  
Sure enough, there was the handsome redhead strutting down the corridor towards the main desk, already dressed in his scarlet and royal blue tour-guide’s suit.  

“Good morning, Louisa!” he returned, jovial as ever and nodding to both of the girls. “Good morning, Cass.” He blinked at the latter of the two, tilting his head with concern. “Are you alright, Cass? You look kind of flushed.”   
Cassidy had to pinch Louisa beneath the table to stop her from bursting into peals of laughter. “I’m fine, Leon. Just a little warm.”

Leon grinned. “That’s good to hear. I was worried that you might’ve caught something off Abbie for a minute there. She was complaining about having a sore head this morning, saying that she couldn’t come in for Lil’Diggers club.” He frowned. “It was kind of unsettling for me. Usually she can’t wait to get to the museum but this morning I had to bribe her with ice-cream to even get her out the door.”   
  
Cassidy uncurled her legs, dangling them over the edge of the counter. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she’s feeling better soon. It’s a good thing that she decided to come in after all though,” she added with a smile. “Abbie is truly the star of the Lil’Diggers Club. It’d be a pity if she missed a meeting.”

Now it was Louisa’s turn to pinch Cassidy under the table, an even wider grin on her glossy lips. Cassidy frowned internally and shot a quick glare down at Louisa..   
Her concern for Abigail Drake had nothing to do with wanting to get closer to Leon; she genuinely got on really well with Abbie. In fact, the little girl was the most intelligent of her age, she’d ever met.   
“Yes, it truly would be a pity,” Leon smiled. “That’s actually what I came down here to talk about. James called in sick this morning and won’t be in for the usual Lil’Diggers meeting before opening hours. Would either of you be interested in filling in?”

Louisa immediately interjected. “Well, I’m actually really busy filing all of these messages for Hewitt and Stanford.” She winked up at her best friend. “But Cassidy here is more than available…”

“ _Lou!”_ Cassidy choked out before coughing slightly and recomposing herself again, looking to Leon. “Yes, I’m free until opening hours and…I’d love to help out with the meeting…”

Leon beamed. “Perfect! You being there will cheer Abbie right up. Plus, the kids are going to be looking at your angel statue this morning. Having you there will make telling the kids about it all the easier. You’re so knowledgeable about this kind of thing anyway. I always fudge all my facts up.”  He scratched the back of his neck, humble as ever. “I don’t know how I ever became a guide here.”   


As she walked down the corridor with Leon, Cassidy could have sworn she heard a wolf-whistle from Louisa in the distance. 

 

* * *

 

“Ok mini-archaeologists,” Leon told the group of children. “I think Miss Albright has answered a lot of your questions about the angel statue! Now it’s time for you to make up some answers of your own.” The older man crouched down to the eye-level of the group of excited, chirpy little kiddies- all clad in coloured jackets and carrying their very own sketch pads. “I want you to look at the angel statue really carefully and to make up your very own story about the angel, Michael. Where do you think he came from? What did he do before he came here? How do you think he would feel to be here if he were a real person? When you’ve got your story, then I want you to go to tell your partner. Ready! Set! Go!”

Cassidy giggled, watching the children run off in their brightly coloured swarm- Abbie in the centre of the group shouting about how her story was the best idea.    
“They’re so enthusiastic. I wish they had this club here when I was little.”   
“Yeah, it would have been great, wouldn’t it?” Leon said, looking to her. “I have to hand it to you, Cass. The statue looks amazing. You did a great job restoring it. This exhibit is going to be amazing when it opens officially.”  

The young woman couldn’t help but swoon slightly, trying with every fibre of her being to not start tittering like a school-girl as she forced modesty upon herself. “Thanks, seriously. Thank you so much…but the exhibit could be so much better. I mean, the statue is so mysterious. There’s so little I could even answer for the kids…”

“Well,” Leon countered. “There are plenty of other exhibits in the museum that are nothing short of exceptional and yet, shrouded in mystery.” He chuckled, guiding her over to a canvas on display on the left wall next to the angel statue. “This painting has created controversy among viewers since the day that it came into the museum.”   
  
“It’s…it’s beautiful.”   


Cassidy’s eyes scanned the painting, taking in each oil-glossed paint-stroke. The work was painted in a distinctly macabre style but with rich, classic colourings. It featured a huge, hulking, slate-skinned beast with a pretty, waif-like young maiden in his burly grasp- all against a backdrop of towering, twisted black trees: some kind of dark forest.    
__  
“La Belle et le Bête,” she read aloud from the golden plaque. “The Beauty and the Beast?”  
  
“Clever,” praised Leon, nodding.   
  
Cassidy waved a hand. “I took up French in Year Nine.” She found herself looking carefully at the painting, her eyes suddenly settling on the face of the maiden in the arms of the supposed beast. “Her face…”   
  
“Yes?”   
She furrowed her brow. “I can’t tell whether the girl is …well it’s hard to say...if…”

“If she’s throwing her head back in fear or in rapture?” Leon grinned. “Yep, that right there is the big controversy. People can’t tell whether or not the maiden has her eyes shut in terror because she’s been captured or in the throes of passion because she’s with her secret lover.”   
  
There was something about hearing Leon use words like “rapture”, “passion” and “lover” that made Cassidy’s fingertips tingle and her mouth turn dry. 

Perhaps she _had_ liked him for quite a while now.   
Girly crush?   
Yes, of course it was.

But Cassidy Albright knew full well that she was no longer a silly, gushing schoolgirl and that was why the constant butterflies in her stomach around Leon was starting to become a little unnerving.

“What do you think? About the painting, I mean,” the tour guide asked her, placing a hand on her shoulder.   
Cassidy swallowed, about to force herself to speak when suddenly she caught something out of the corner of her eye, in her peripheral vision. The overbearing paranoia and the feeling of being watched had suddenly returned.  
She whipped her head around, a flash of grey caught in her gaze and in an instant, she was staring at the angel statue again.   
  
At Michael.

“Are you alright?” Leon asked, quizzically and furrowing his brows.   
Cassidy felt herself shudder involuntarily, nodding quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” She laughed outright, not feeling quite in the mood for laughter but laughing all the same. “I…I just…I just felt as if the angel statue was looking at me!”   
“Well, he’s not going to see much, is he? He has his arm over his eyes.”   
“…well, it still felt like…the statue was watching…somehow…listening, even…”  
“Listening?”  
She had never felt so relieved in her entire life when Abbie suddenly ran over, tugging the leg of her brother’s pressed drainpipe trousers.

“Leon! Leon! Everybody’s done telling their stories! Can we draw now!? Can we?!”

Leon smiled, patting his sister’s head. “Ok, ok. Simmer down, Abbie!” He blew his whistle, summoning the children over and giving the new instructions.   
  
“Ok everyone. Now we’re going to sketch the statue. You all know the drill. We’ll sit around the statue in a semi-circle. Take a good long look at the angel, then look down at your drawing pads and see how much of the angel you can draw from memory. Don’t look up until you’ve finished and see how like the angel your drawing is! Sketching from memory is an important skill of an archaeologist…”

Cassidy was only half-listening.   
Her own eyes were still focused on the statue, hard and unblinking. Even though she couldn’t see its eyes, she felt as though it was staring back at her.  
  
Watching her every move.   
A wave of nausea washed over her and her stomach suddenly tightened.

“I- I’ll be outside.”   
She ran from the room, heading over to the nearest drinking-water fountain and dangling her head over the pristine metal bowl. She wasn’t particularly thirsty but for some reason, pressing her head down against the cool metal and looking at nothing but her own blurry reflection was somewhat soothing.   
She pressed the button gingerly, letting the water gush from the spout and taking a long, cool slurp.   
  
Cassidy spluttered, feeling someone suddenly touch her back and whipping around to see Leon standing there, holding a paper cup and looking concerned.

“I find it easier to drink with one of these,” he said rather quietly, handing her the cup which she gratefully accepted. “Are you sure you’re not sick, Cass? I mean first the flushing and now...”   
Cassidy shook her head vigorously, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “I’m fine. Just…just a little on the stressed side, today.”   
  
Leon rubbed her back gently, bringing colour to her cheeks once more. “You know, it’s alright to have a bit of a fear of statues even if you work with them. I’ll admit, I have no idea how you spend so much time alone with them…”

She blinked.   
He thought she was _afraid_ of the statue?   
Was she?  


Cassidy coughed, taking another sip of water and putting the cup aside. “I’m not afraid of the statue…I just…” She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just got really uncomfortable in there for a moment.” She forced herself to smile again. “Maybe I’m just overworked. Seeing the statue on display was rather weird and perhaps it’s only serving to remind me of this presentation I have to do. I’m a bit nervous of that, I’ll admit.”   
  
Leon nodded, smiling warmly and putting his arm around her to give her a comforting half-embrace. “I wouldn’t worry about the presentation. You’ll do great. Besides, you’ll have me, Louisa and Ed in the audience for support.” He chuckled. “Not to mention, you’ve got your very own guardian angel looking out for you.”   
Cassidy was about to laugh, a dizzying lightness in her head from being held so close to Leon, but she was drowned out by the sounds of screaming.

The two museum workers looked up in panic, watching as the entire group of children came running from the display room, screaming and shrieking and crying.   
Some of the younger children were in complete hysterics, their cheeks soaked with tears and their brows creased with shock. 

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” Leon asked, frantically running forward to comfort and to count the children.   
The bottom just about dropped from Cassidy’s stomach when amidst the cacophony of squeals and screams, she heard what the children were saying.    


“It moved, Leon!”  
“The angel statue moved!”   
“It looked up!”   
“It was so scary!”   


As Leon tried to calm the children and to coax them to go back inside, Cassidy found herself gripping the edge of the water fountain for support- to stop herself from keeling over.    
She watched as little Abbie bypassed her brother and instead came hurtling towards her.

Cassidy stooped down, allowing the little girl to throw her tiny arms around her neck.   
“Abbie, sshhh,” she tried to soothe her, despite the hammering heart in her own chest. “It’s just a statue. I’m sure it was a trick of the light or something. It didn’t really move…”

“No!” Abbie insisted, hugging the young woman as tightly as she could. “He moved! He really did. He looked right at us.”   
The little girl drew closer to Cassidy, whispering into her ear.   
Abbie’s words truly made her feel sick and chilled her to her very core.

“He watches you when you sleep,” she whispered.   
Cassidy’s eyes widened and she reeled backwards, grabbing the little girl by the shoulders. “What?”   
“He likes to watch you when you sleep,” she repeated. “Sometimes when you fall asleep at your desk, he walks over to watch you sleeping.”    
“ _Who does, Abbie?_ ” Cassidy asked in a confused, frightened whisper.   


“Michael watches you, Cassy. The angel statue.”    


Cassidy felt her stomach convulse and her fingertips started to turn cold. “Wh-Who told you that?”   
“ _He_ did, Cassy. Michael did. He told me in a dream I had.” The little girl sniffed, nestling closer. “I wanted to tell you before but he’s just so _scary_.”  
 

Before she could say or ask anything else, Leon came over to pry Abbie away from her and to usher her back over to the crowd of squawking children. “Come on, Abbie. Leave Cass alone.”  
Cassidy wanted to lift an arm to stop him and to call the little girl back.  
However, she couldn’t.

Her arms were cold and numb. 

She stood up and suddenly broke into a run.  
 _“They said that he moved. They all said that he moved. All of the children said that he moved.”  
_

She ran to the display room, bolting to the statue as fast as her quivering legs could carry her. No.   
The angel hadn’t moved an inch. Michael was still in the exact same position that he had always been in.  One muscular fore-arm draped over his eyes as if he was crying and the other relaxed at his side, the palm slightly outstretched as if seeking comfort.

What frightened Cassidy was the secret part of her that was so relieved that he hadn’t moved.   


But what truly terrified Cassidy was the secret part of her that had badly wanted to see the statue move.  
  


* * *

 

It only took a day for Cassidy to return to normality.   
It took a single sleepless night for her to stop thinking frightening thoughts about the angel and to be able to face it once again.  


Admittedly, however, she felt somewhat better with Louisa standing behind her as she polished the angel’s huge stone wings.   
She sprayed another layer of water and liquid soap on to the angel’s stone feathers, waiting for the mist to settle before working the mixture into the carved plumage with a soft cloth.

“So the kids were all just screaming and bolting?” the receptionist questioned. “That’s so fucking weird.”   


Cassidy nodded, shrugging. “Leon had a right job trying to get them all back inside the room.” She grimaced, shaking her head. “And a right job trying to deal with all of the complaining parents.”   
  
“And they were all screaming about the angel having moved?”   
“Yes,” Cassidy replied, dabbing around the angel’s face. “It was probably a trick of the light of some kind. The children are seriously imaginative too. Maybe their imagination games just got a little bit out of hand.”

Louisa smirked, stretching and tilting her head at the statue. “ _Well,_ there have been a fair few rumours flying around about that statue. Some of the staff swear that they’ve seen it move since it’s been on display.” She nudged Cassidy, bubbly as always and her hoop earrings jangling at each step. “In fact, Petra from security swears to the ground that she saw it step down from its podium.”

“What a load of bull,” Cassidy said, feeling straight away that the words sounded too harsh. She knew that her friend was only trying to sprinkle a little humour on the situation but all the same, she didn’t like hearing that other people were claiming to have seen the statue move.   
  
“You know what’s a lot of bull? Did you hear what Alex told Richie this afternoon?” Louisa strode up to the statue as she nattered on about some flighty museum gossip. She was about to lean on the statue.   
She had no sooner lifted a hand before Cassidy swatted her away. “Oi, not when I’ve just polished it.”

“Oooh,” teased Louisa. “A little touchy about that statue, eh?” She caught Cassidy’s offending hand playfully. “I’m starting to get worried that angel-boy here is stealing my Cass away from me. Taking all of her atten-…fuck! Cass! Your hands!”  
Cassidy squirmed uncomfortably, pulling her hand away from Louisa. “…what about them?”   
“They’re all red and sore-looking!”   
“It’s from repairing all of the cracks in the angel’s body. The plaster burns sometimes and the stone leaves cuts.” She waved it off,  pre-empting her companion’s misdirected pity. “Don’t fret about it though, it’s fine.”

Louisa arched her brow, her voice softening completely. “Cass…” She paused for a moment before speaking again, her tone rejuvenated and bouncy again. “So what are you wearing for the big night?”    
  
Cassidy grinned as she moved a hand to polish the angel’s neck. “The red dress I wore for Petra’s birthday night out.”    
  
“The one with the roses?” Louisa gushed, grinning. “Oh God, babe, you should definitely wear a red rose in your hair too.”   
  
The young archaeologist beamed, running her hand up the angel’s neck and up to his strong jaw-bone. “Red roses are my favourite blooms. They’re amazing, aren’t they?” She smiled. “The flowers that symbolise passion, lust, romance…the colour that symbolises power, danger, ferocity…”   
  
“You kinky little minx,” Louisa grinned, mirthfully slapping Cassidy’s backside.   
  
“It’s not like that at all!” Cassidy protested, laughing. “I’m an _archaeologist._ I just quite like any use of symbolism.”   
  
“ _Yeah, sure_ you do, lovie,” her friend taunted, grabbing her around the waist and hugging her tightly, pulling her away from the angel and causing her to drop her cloth.   
“ _Louisa!_ ” Cassidy objected but then dissolved into a fit of giggles, realising that struggling was futile when her best friend was in one of her hyper moods. “Could you possibly do my hair for me, for the exhibition, Lou? You know how positively hopeless I am with a curling iron.”   
“Sure, love. What were you thinking? Up do or down do?”   
“You choose for me.”   
Louisa winked. “How’s about you ditch this boring old angel statue for a while and join me for a coffee? I won’t take no for an answer!”

Cassidy opened her mouth to dissent but Louisa had already grabbed her around the wrist and dragged her out the door.

“Come on, Cass! He’s made of stone! He’s not going to mind if I steal you away for a while!” 

 

* * *

 

_But the angel **did** mind. _

_He had long decided that he did not like it when other filthy human vermin distracted his little human pet and took her attention away from him._  
The angel very much liked having a tight hold on his slave’s mind and it set rage boiling like molten rock beneath his skin to see other humans fawning over her.   
Seeing others **touching** his little human gave was enough to make him murderously angry. 

_Somebody else was touching what he had yet to claim but what he had declared his own._  
Somebody else was playing with **his** trinket.   
**His** toy.   
“My little slave should not be surrounded by others,” he decided. “All of her time and devotion should be to my well-being. Me, the superior being.” 

_He watched the dark-haired female human drag his slave from the room and gave a low chuckle._  
As much as it angered him, there was one definite benefit to having his little human surrounded by others.   
There was always a meal ready and waiting for him.   
And he had decided to have some particular fun with this one. 

* * *

 

It was an hour after closing time and two hours before lock-up.

With a pen snugly resting in her hand, pressed against the page of her notebook and headphones resting snugly in her ears, she sat alone in the preparation room, working on her speech.

Cassidy had learned a long time ago that she slept best when listening to music.   
It was her mother who had first resorted to leaving the radio on to soothe her five-year-old insomniac to sleep.   
Unfortunately, despite having learned this lesson only too well over eighteen years ago, Cassidy still often left her iPod on and in her ears while she was working late at night in a desperate attempt to keep herself awake.

The preparation room felt strangely bare without the angel statue there.   
It also felt bizarrely lonely but devoid of the usual paranoia she had started to feel in there. Her finger swirled around the white dial pad of the iPod before finally clicking on the first song that appeared on the screen.

_“Close your eyes,_  
Give me your hand, darling.   
Do you feel my heart beating?   
Do you understand?” 

She found herself lightly murmuring along to the lyrics of the old Bangles tune. Cassidy had never been much of a singer but singing quietly along became a rather automatic reaction. It wasn’t long before the printed blue words on the page in front of her started to double, triple- hazing and fazing into each other like phantoms.

_“Do you feel the same?  
Or am I only dreaming?” _

Cassidy felt her eyes become heavier, her shoulders and neck starting to quiver and quake under the weight of her drowsy head.   
Only seconds later, the young woman’s head was resting on the table, her eyes shut in slumber and her breathing deep and slow.  

_“Is this burning an eternal flame?”_

Her brow furrowed as she slept, feeling as if someone was watching her.

_“I believe, it’s meant to be, darling.”_

Soon, she was dreaming.

_“I watch you when you are sleeping,_  
You belong to me.   
Do you feel the same?   
Or am I only dreaming?” 

She dreamt of Michael, of the angel, just as she had for every night since she had found the statue.

_“Is this burning an eternal flame?”_

She dreamt that Michael’s cold, grey skin had turned to smooth flesh. Somehow he had transformed into a living being. For the first time ever, she could see his eyes and though the image never quite stuck in her mind, she knew they were captivating.  
In her dream, Michael sat upon a throne, lined with gold and red velvet. She tirelessly had to bring him plates of exotic foods and massive tankards of drink but no matter how much she brought him, he was only hungrier still.  
It wasn’t long before she collapsed with exhaustion at his feet.   
She looked up at the mighty angel in fear, terrified that he would punish her in some way.   
Instead, Michael smirked darkly, reaching down and taking her by the chin.

_“No weeping, my little pet,”_ he whispered, guiding her to stand and to sit into his lap. _“No tears.”  
_ He cupped her face and brought her close, his lips only mere centimetres from hers.   
_“Close your eyes,”_ he commanded her. _“Just close your eyes.”_

Cassidy stirred in her sleep, feeling a terrible heat rise in her face and neck.   
“Mmm…”

  
Suddenly “ _Eternal Flame”_ by Bangles came to a sharp and sudden close and the next track on the iPod, _“You Give Love a Bad Name”_ by Bon Jovi tore through her ear canals.   
She jerked awake with a start, yawning and stretching, her eyes opening slowly and groggily.

Her heart just about stopped and her whole body seized with terror.   
The angel right there, watching her, standing in the open doorway.   
Staring at her.  
Cassidy let out a scream, blinking hard and vigorously rubbing her eyes.

“Woah, woah, woah…Cass! Are you alright?”   
The apprentice archaeologist blinked again, opening her eyes once more.   
Where the angel statue had once stood, Omar was now standing. The wiry security guard pointed his torch in the door, looking a little confused. 

“H-Hi Omar…”   
“You ok, Cass? I heard you scream.”   
“Yeah, yeah…I’m fine. I just fell asleep at my desk. Had a stupid night terror. I’ll be alright.”   
The security guard nodded, saluting her. “Ah, ok. That’s cool. Holler if you actually need anything. Louisa was looking for you by the way. She’s down by the exhibits on the fourth floor.”

Cassidy thanked Omar and let him set off ahead of her.   
She was about to leave herself when her eyes fell upon something new on her desk. Her jaw slackened at the sight of a single red, wild rose laying atop her notes.   
Carefully, Cassidy took up the rose and inspected it. It was definitely picked from the wild- laden with thorns and its stem frayed and moist. However, the petals were the most perfect shade of deep red that she’d ever seen.

A smile broke out across her face.   
Had Louisa left it there? Or maybe even, Leon?   
Whoever had, they had certainly brightened up her day and her little night terror was instantly forgotten.

She rushed off to see her first culprit, grinning from ear to ear when she found her standing on the fourth floor, right next to the room where the angel statue had been on display.   


“Hey Lou! Lou! Check out this rose somebody left me! Was it you? You are _such_ a sneaky-…Lou?”

The receptionist had her back turned.   
Immediately, Cassidy could feel that something was wrong.

“Lou are you alright?”   
She put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Lou, talk to me. What’s up?”

Louisa Fitzhugh turned around, her eyes wide and staring, her lips trembling and her entire body quivering. The young woman looked terrified beyond reason.   
Cassidy felt her own legs start to shake.

“L-Louisa. What’s the matter? What happened?”

She tried to reach out to touch Louisa’s shoulder but her hand was quickly pushed away. Cassidy inhaled sharply; her friend’s skin was freezing cold.   
Like stone.

“C-Cassidy? Cassidy…I…I…can’t… _Ten.”_

“You can’t _ten_?” Cassidy repeated. “What do you mean, Lou?”

Louisa looked to her with a kind of seriousness that didn’t suit the young woman’s round, usually carefree face. “Cassidy. I…I…heard something coming from inside the exhibition room so I went inside. _Nine.”_

“Nine?”

“I…I…s-saw…the angel…and it was- _eight-_ it…oh God….it looked…it _looked_ …s _even.”_

Cassidy’s entire body had stopped working. Her heart was hammering so hard against her ribcage that she was surprised that the bones had shattered yet.   


“Louisa, you have to relax. J-Just calm down for a m-moment,” she tried her hardest to sound soothing despite her own anxiety, slowly consuming her. “What do you mean? And why are you counting down?”

“ _S-six…_ the angel looked right at me…and its eyes…oh fucking Christ, its eyes…I couldn’t look away.”   


Cassidy squeezed the stem of the rose so hard against her palm that the thorns pierced the soft pads of her hand and set her blood dripping in crimson streams, meandering in macabre estuaries along her knuckles. “Why are you counting down, L-Lou?” she repeated.

“I…It did s-something…it…it went inside of me…I tried to…f _ive…._ I mean, I tried to get away b-but it was always there…”

With her free hand, Cassidy tried to reach out to touch Louisa again, her voice now strangled by pure, undiluted fear of the unknown. “Come on, Lou. W-we have to go somewhere else. L-Let’s go and get Omar or one of the other s-security guards and I’ll d-drive us h-home. Or you can stay with me tonight…”

Louisa stepped away from her touch, her eyes wide and glassy as she shook her head vigorously, suddenly shaking even more violently than before, her teeth chattering as she spoke.

“Y-you can’t d-do anything n-now…Cass…y-you just have to… _four…_ you just have to get away…”

“What? Get away?”   


“ _Three…_ it’s n-n-not what it seems. I-It’s never what it s-seems…”

“Louisa! Stop it! Come on! J-Just come with me!”

“Ah! Jesus Christ…it’s…it’s in my eyes…it’s coming for me…and it’s coming for you, Cass. D-Don’t let y-your guard d-down… _two…_ ”

“L-Lou?”

“And w-whatever you do…don’t blink… _one…”_

Louisa fell to the floor, her eyes wide and staring, her body twitching and convulsing before finally laying still.   


It wasn’t until the security guards were flooding the hallway, Omar grabbing her, shaking her and hugging her, that Cassidy Albright realised that she was screaming.   


 

 

 

  


 

 

 

 

 

  
  


 

  


 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoping you enjoyed reading this chapter! :)


	4. IV

Louisa Fitzhugh died that night.

The next few hours following her best friend’s collapse were blurry for Cassidy Albright. When she played the events of the evening back in her mind, it was like a black and white silent movie flashing before her eyes.   


Omar was shaking her, holding her by the shoulders, demanding to know what had happened. Then she was on the floor next to Louisa, slapping her face, tears spilling down her own cheeks as she desperately tried to wake her friend.

Then they were in an ambulance with Louisa, watching as plastic tubes criss-crossed around her body, her head flopping drunkenly from side to side with each bump of the road. A man in a dark blue shirt was telling that “everything would be alright.”

_“I was certain…I was **so** certain,” Cassidy found herself thinking. “That it was the angel’s left arm covering his eyes when we found it. I would have remembered a detail as important as that. I **never** make those kinds of basic mistakes. Not even when I’m excited…”_

Then they were in the A&E section of the hospital. She could remember being roughly grabbed by a nearby nurse and ushered into a waiting area. She was screaming something- _pleading-_ as her friend was wheeled down a distant corridor.   


Now it was a woman in a green shirt who was telling her that _“everything would be alright.”_   
A childhood prayer ghosted over Cassidy’s lips.   
She needed that kind of blind comfort at that moment.   
_“Angel sent by God to guide me…be my light and walk beside me…”_  
She thumbed her phone, wondering if she should text anyone to tell them about Louisa.  


_She remembered the children screaming and running from the room._  
They said that the angel had moved.   
Perhaps they it had just been their imagination.   
But then…could imagination alone really drive an entire group of twenty children to complete hysteria?   
The security tapes in the room, according to Omar and Leon, had glitched at the time of the incident.   
There was no way to prove that they were telling the truth.   
There was no way to prove that they were lying either. 

A doctor walked out of the surgery, ashen faced and sullen with his head hung low, only minutes after Louisa’s parents had arrived.   
Louisa Fitzhugh was pronounced dead at 10:45pm that evening.   
Cassidy could remember breaking into tears and being held by a stranger to comfort her. She could also remember covering her ears to block out Mrs Fitzhugh’s howling and Mr Fitzhugh’s cursing.

_Louisa had said something about other employees having seen the statue move._  
Something about rumours going around the museum of the statue being able to move when no one was watching.   
Cassidy had never felt so frightened of her own psyche when she found her most prominent thought to be:   
“But I was around the angel the most. Why has he never moved in front of **me**?” 

The funeral and burial took place two days later.   
Cassidy could remember standing at an open grave-side, wearing her mother’s black suit jacket and the pencil skirt that she wore for her very first interview with Doctor Hewitt. She thought he would have at least shown up for the funeral too, but there was no sign of him anywhere in the crowd of mourners.   


She didn’t know why she had even bothered with make-up that morning. Any mascara that had been on her eyelashes was now trailing down both cheeks.   
Her body was weak with grief and her mind was battered with anxiety.

_She could remember Abbie holding on to her, her little hands grasping at her neck and her little voice, shrill with urgency and warning._  
 **“He likes to watch you when you’re sleeping…”**  
The angel had apparently told her that himself, in a dream.   
Maybe Leon was right: maybe Abbie’s imagination had just run away with her.   
That said, what on earth would possess a child to imagine something so disturbing? Abbie had never said anything like that to her before.    
  


The coffin was lowered into the ground.   
Cassidy did her very best to ignore the fact that her best friend was in that coffin and she just about managed a weak but grateful smile to all those strangers who clapped her on the back and squeezed her shoulders to show their condolences.   
She didn’t want their sympathy though. At that very moment, her mind was not on Louisa being dead. It was on Louisa’s last few moments.

_“C-Cassidy? Cassidy…I…I…can’t…Ten.  
_ She had turned around with such a look of fear in her eyes that Cassidy herself was instantly thrust into shock. __  
  


_“Cassidy. I…I…heard something coming from inside the exhibition room so I went inside. Nine.”  
_ What had she heard? Had there been someone in there? _  
“I…I…s-saw…the angel…and it was- eight- it…oh God….it looked…it looked…seven.”  
_ The angel? What about the angel? __  
  


_“S-six…the angel looked right at me…and its eyes…oh fucking Christ, its eyes…I couldn’t look away.”  
_ Its _eyes_? But its eyes were covered. __  
  


_“I…It did s-something…it…it went inside of me…I tried to…five….I mean, I tried to get away b-but it was always there…”  
_ What did she mean? __  
  


_“Y-you can’t d-do anything n-now…Cass…y-you just have to…four…you just have to get away…”  
_ Get away from what? The angel? __  
  


_“Three…it’s n-n-not what it seems. I-It’s never what it s-seems…”  
_ If it’s not what it seems then what is it? __  
  


_“Ah! Jesus Christ…it’s…it’s in my eyes…it’s coming for me…and it’s coming for you, Cass. D-Don’t let y-your guard d-down…two…”  
_ It was in her eyes? What did that mean? And what did she mean when she said it was “coming for” her? __  
  


__  
“And w-whatever you do…don’t blink…one…”  
Don’t blink? 

 

Cassidy’s mind was a tumultuous maelstrom of questions as she walked away from the crowd, deliberately avoiding the other mourners as she navigated her way through the maze of polished headstones.   


She flinched, almost walking straight into a tall, blue, old-fashioned police call-box, positioned right at the edge of the walkway into the church.   
She was just thinking that it was a rather bizarre place to put a police call-box and wondering why she had never noticed it there before when the door suddenly swung open, almost hitting her.

“W-woah there,” a young man stuttered, stumbling out of the door. He raked his fingers through his dark brown hair and adjusted his rather oddly-placed red bow-tie as he looked to her. “Oh…oh, s-sorry. I apologise. Just…er…”   
His eyes scanned her from head to toe, obviously noticing her mourning clothes- if not her extremely dishevelled choice of make-up.

Cassidy herself was just wondering what exactly the man had been doing in the police box that he had left it with such anxiousness and haste when a pretty young woman stumbled out behind him.   
“What are you doing, standing in the doorway like that, Doctor?” she demanded to know with a chuckle. “We’re not on another plan-..” Her eyes fell on Cassidy. “O-Oh…hello…”

Cassidy frowned internally.   
Snogging in a police box…in a grave yard…during a funeral.   
Yes, that was a sign of incredible class.   


Surprising too, as they both looked like rather respectable individuals.

The man closed the door of the police box quickly, locking it and mumbling something vague about “police-box inspections” before looking to the other mourners who were drifting past.   
“I…uh…I’m sorry,” he repeated, looking back to Cassidy. “For your loss. Were you ever very close to…?”   
The man’s voice trailed off, his brow furrowing as he appeared to be studying Cassidy’s face.   
She took a step back slightly, feeling a little invaded by this strange man’s sudden curiosity.   
Her make-up hadn’t stained her face _that_ badly, had it?

“She was my best friend,” she managed to say bluntly, self-consciously wiping her face with the back of her sleeve.   


The woman promptly nudged her male friend in the arm, looking a little annoyed before looking to Cassidy with a kind smile. “I’m very sorry about your loss too.”   
She suddenly looked like she wanted to apologise for the man’s behaviour but before she could say anything, he spoke again.

“Have we met before?”   
_“Doctor!”_ His female companion prodded him with annoyance. “Leave her alone! Now is not the time! Can’t you see she’s-?”    
But the “Doctor” didn’t seem to be listening. “What’s your name?”

“Cassidy Albright,” she answered, her mind far too numb to even question the practicality of introducing oneself to weird people involved in intimate operations in a police box, in a grave-yard.

“Hmm…I think we’ve met before, Cassidy…”   


She quirked an eyebrow. “I think…I’d remember meeting you…Mr?”   
“Doctor.”   
“Dr-?”

Before the man could say anything else, there was a faint beeping sound coming from the inner part of his suit jacket. “Ah…”  
He fumbled inside his tweed lapel, apparently turning something off and shaking his head. “Nevermind…nevermind…” He beckoned to his female companion. “Come along, Clara. We’d better get going.”   
The Doctor looked back to Cassidy once again with a half-smile. “We’ll talk again.”

“Clara”, as she had been dubbed, had just enough time to give her a final apologetic smile before being tugged away by her Doctor friend.

Cassidy shook her head, walking back around the church.   
Strange as their encounter had been, it had been a welcome distraction, but now that it was over, her heart was heavy with grief again.   
Had she actually met that man before?   
If he was a doctor than perhaps he was a friend of Hewitt’s whom she had met at the museum before?

Cassidy squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a sudden painful throbbing in her temples.   
The museum was the last thing that she wanted to think about at that very moment in time.    
Just as she was getting into a taxi to head home, her heart jolted in her chest.   
Standing on one of the roof ledges of the church was an angel statue.

An angel statue that almost looked exactly like _her_ angel statue.  
Only for that both of its arms were outstretched.   
Open and either offering or seeking a comforting embrace.

“Where to, Miss?” the driver asked.   
Cassidy pushed every other thought to furthest corner of her mind and concentrated on giving the man directions back to her house.

There was no way it could have been the same statue.   
Grief was just pushing her to her limits.   
She feared just exactly how far it could push her.

 

* * *

 

“Albright, Albright, Albright,” the Doctor repeated, shaking his head as they walked. “Why is that name so familiar?”   
Clara frowned deeply. “The girl had just walked out of her best friend’s _funeral_ and you were there gawking at her as if she had three heads. I ought to have slapped you just for that. The poor thing looked fit to start crying again.”   
The Doctor squirmed at this threat but sighed, waving a hand. “I’ve definitely met that girl somewhere before.”   


“Well she didn’t seem to know who you were.”   
“Ah, that is because she probably hasn’t met me _yet._ I’ve probably met her at some point in her future. You know…because time isn’t linear…”  
“Yes, yes, yes…I know. I _know_. You’ve explained it before. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey and all that…”   


Clara smirked a little, nudging the doctor as they walked. “Perhaps she’s one of your past lovers? One of the _many_ famous women to captivate the doctor?”   
He grimaced at the word “many” and shook his head. “No, no, no…nothing like that…I’d _remember_ if she were someone like that. No…Cassidy Albright just seemed…familiar.”

Clara raised an eyebrow. “A good kind of familiar or a bad kind of familiar?”   
The Doctor exhaled, furrowing his brow and watching as the young, blonde-haired woman climbed into a taxi across the road. “I’m not sure yet.” He narrowed his eyes. “I just feel as if I should be telling her something. Something important.”

He noticed her looking out the window, feeling a shudder run through him and turned quickly to follow her gaze to the roof of the church.   
But there was nothing there.   
When he turned back around, the taxi was gone.

“Something the matter?” Clara asked, worried for her eccentric, two-hearted friend.   
The Doctor shook his head again. “Ah…yes, everything is fine…”   
“Did you remember what you had to tell her?”

“No. But if it’s important, I will. I always do, don’t I?”   
__  
  


 

 

 

 

__  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!   
> I'm open to any kind of comment, criticism or query!


	5. V

Cassidy tugged a cardigan around her shoulders, folding the fluffy collar downward in order to stop it from tickling the bare skin of her neck. Her mother had knitted it for her when she was nine and it had been about four sizes too big.   
“You’ll grow into it,” she had assured her disgruntled daughter- who never thought for a second that her mother would one day be proved right.

  
“Not as bad as before,” she thought, inspecting herself in the glass of the bathroom mirror. The dark circles and lines around her eyes were starting to fade, her face had almost completely regained its colour and when she scraped all of her long blonde hair back into a ponytail, she no longer had prominent stress-veins sticking out like fat, blue serpents on her temples.   
She crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, hoping not to wake her mother. The elderly woman had fallen asleep on the sofa again the night before and knowing how much her ill mother needed her rest, Cassidy couldn’t have brought herself to stir her.   
  
“Are you sure you’re alright to be heading back to work already? It’s early.”

_Damn._  
Cassidy rolled her eyes and walked into the sitting room, shaking her head.   
“Mum,” she sighed with a slight smile, stooping to kiss her mother’s powdery, wrinkled cheek. “You’re _right._ It’s early. It’s like seven forty-five. You should get back to sleep.”   
Maria Albright frowned stubbornly and lifted a hand to tuck a stray, flossy tendril of hair behind her daughter’s ear.   
“Oi. Last time I checked, I was the mummy and I was the one telling you when to go back to sleep.” Her face softened and she coughed throatily. “And that’s not what I meant. Love, it’s only been two weeks since…” The old woman’s voice trailed off for a moment, suddenly re-animating again. “If the museum is offering you more time off with pay…”

Now it was Cassidy’s turn to look stubborn. “I need to get back to my statue.”   
She stood up straight. “The presentation is tonight. It’s a big night both for me and for the exhibit. Dr Hewitt hasn’t gotten back to me about actually showing up and no one knows that exhibit better than me, anyway.” She swallowed, ignoring the stinging feeling in the corners of her eyes. “Lou…was really happy…for me…when she heard about the exhibition…she’d want me to do it.”   
“If you say so, poppet,” Maria murmured, nodding. “Do a good job, kiddo.” The woman keeled over slightly, her breathing wrenched by hacking coughs for a moment before she recovered, her face falling slightly. “I…I wish I could go to see your speech for myself.” 

“It’s alright, Mum,” Cassidy said quickly dashing any possible melancholic rambles. It hurt enough to know that the only woman who was more proud of the exhibit than she was probably wasn’t even going to able to see it properly on the night of its official opening; she didn’t need to be reminded. “It’ll probably be really boring anyway. Just a lot of stuffy historians and chatty journalists trying to take pictures. Get plenty of rest and don’t forget to take your medication.” 

Another kiss on the cheek was offered and accepted and with that, an aloof daughter left her proud mother.  
Both were wearing the same absent-minded, half-smile.  

 

Cassidy headed straight to the main office when she reached the museum.  
The reasoning behind her destination was twofold.   
Firstly, Curator Stanford had firmly requested that she check in with him before returning to work.  
However she was also there because she needed to see a security guard as soon as possible. She wanted immediate access to the tapes of the exhibition room on the night when Louisa died. 

Her friend’s enigmatic final words had concerned nothing else but the angel. For the past two weeks, she had simply replayed the scene in her mind. Over and over, each new viewing of the scene raising another thousand questions.   
But now, after two weeks of grieving, she was done with questions.  
Cassidy wanted answers now. _  
_

She was obstinately prepared to demand to see a security guard if needs be, but that wasn’t necessary at all. Omar was waiting outside of Stanford’s office, looking strangely alien without his usual royal blue security guard’s uniform.   
“ _Cass_ ,” he said with a breathy, shocked sigh as he caught sight of her. “Jesus, Cass, I didn’t think you’d be back in so soon…” He furrowed his brow. “Fuck…I know how close you were to Lou. I…I’m so sorry, Cass.”   
His arms automatically opened for the mandatory comforting hug, which she accepted somewhat awkwardly, shuffling in her converse runners.   
“Y-Yeah, well,” Cassidy managed to say quickly, ignoring the prickling feeling in the corners of her eyes. “I…I just wanted to get back to normality you know. Get the presentation done and start to get my life back on track again. You know what I’m like. Happiest when I’m busy.”   
She stepped back from Omar and forced herself to laugh flippantly, not wanting to cry in front of the security guard. She was sick of people pitying her. She missed Lou, but she hadn’t been rendered helpless.  

“Look, Cass,” Omar began, starting the mandatory support speech that everyone is required to give to bereaved individuals. “If there’s anything that I can do to help you settle back in at all, just s-…”  
“Actually,” Cassidy cut across him. “I know this is probably a bit of a weird request and…I’m sorry for asking but…is there any chance that I could have a look at the security tapes from the night that Lou…” She swallowed, suddenly unable to say what she had meant to. “The night that Lou was taken to the hospital.”   
Omar frowned, his brow creasing and he was about to answer, when suddenly two police officers walked briskly from Stanford’s office, passing the museum workers with complete nonchalance.

Cassidy raised an eyebrow, watching the two black-jackets as they walked away. “What are the police here for?”   
Omar’s face became sullen and he shook his head.

“The disappearances.”   
“ _Disappearances?!”_ Cassidy’s eyebrows shot upward into her hairline. “What disappearances?” 

“A lot happened in the last two weeks, Cass,” Omar went on, dropping his voice and moving closer to her. “There have been missing persons’ reports. Now, I know a missing person’s report is nothing new in London but so far, five of them have been tied to the museum…”  
“How have they been tied to the museum?” she demanded to know, following suit and lowering her voice to a whisper.   
“All five of the people have been traced to having last been seen at the museum. Darrow and Hewitt haven’t been checking in with work recently either. Darrow hasn’t been into work in three weeks and Hewitt never arrived in McIntosh’s lab in Glasgow. They’re currently running investigations into both of their whereabouts.”   
“Wh-what? You can’t be serious.”  
Cassidy’s heartbeat had gone from beating so quickly that she could have sworn it was humming, to beating so slowly that her entire body suddenly felt as though she was no longer fully alive.

Omar nodded. “I’m completely fucking serious, Cass. Seven people in total. One of them is a minor. Missing and every single disappearance is somehow connected to the museum.”   
Cassidy shook her throbbing head, not wanting to even contemplate the significance of this revelation.   
“But…the people…they couldn’t have just disappeared. Haven’t they checked the security cameras? Can’t they just trace what happened to them? Where they were last seen?”

“That’s why I can’t help you with the tapes, Cass,” Omar insisted, grabbing her shoulder and looking her in the eye. “That’s why Stanford’s called all the security guards in this morning. There’s _nothing_ on the security tapes. Everything is _gone_. The tapes are completely blank.”   
Cassidy blinked, her eyes widening. “No. That’s not possible. Are you sure it’s not just a glitch? You said the security cameras were acting wei-…”   
“This is no fucking glitch. The cameras have gone from being trippy to just recording nothing. Ever since the night Louisa… _passed_.” Omar bit his lip, looking upwards and taking a deep inhale. “Ever since that night, the cameras haven’t recorded a single thing. Stanford wanted to close the museum because of the lack of security until the fucking problem’s been sorted out but the Museum Board won’t let him because of the funds they’ll lose.” He sighed gruffly. “They just want the security guards to start working in wider, twenty-four hour shifts…”   

“So you’re saying there’s no footage on the security tapes, whatsoever? Nothing at all?”  
“There’s _nothing,_ Cass.” Omar didn’t let go of Cassidy’s shoulder for a second, his grip slowly tightening as his eyes met hers once more. “Look, I’m not trying to freak you out but Jesus Christ, we didn’t have any of these problems until that bloody st-…”

The door of Curator Stanford’s office opened and the balding middle-aged man poked his head around the polished frame, his eyes widening slightly as they fell upon Cassidy.

“Ah, Miss Albright. Welcome back.” He looked to Omar. “If you don’t mind, Mr Ramokadi, I’ll speak to Miss Albright first.” Not waiting for Omar’s response, the curator looked to her, beckoning her inside. “This will only take a moment.”   

The conversation with Stanford was watery as ever and the fact that he did not once bring up the running investigations that Omar had mentioned surprised Cassidy, while at the same time not surprising her at all.   
She could only imagine that the curator would be trying his very hardest to keep the whole situation as hushed as possible.  


Despite the fact that every inch of her mind was suddenly slowly being pushed to the point of splintering, Cassidy forced herself to smile and nod, partaking in the mundane script set before her.

_“So then Miss Albright, how have you been?”_  
“Fine, thank you.”    
“Are you certain that you are ready to return to work?”  
“Yes, Mr Stanford.”   
“The official opening and press conference for the angel statue exhibit is tonight. Since Dr Hewitt cannot be contacted at this time, are you prepared to make the main presentation yourself?”   
“Yes, Mr Stanford.”   
“You don’t have to do this, Miss Albright. We can arrange for another member of-…”   
“I’m prepared to make the presentation, Mr Stanford. I’ve been prepared to make this presentation for a long time now.”   
“Alright then. Well, the statue has been moved back into the preparation room for any last minute checks that you’d like to make. Our PR officer has prepared a section of your main speech…”

Not a single word regarding the disappearances or Louisa Fitzhugh’s death passed between them and minutes later, Cassidy found herself walking the familiar route to the preparation room for the first time in two weeks.   


There was a quiver in her step and her fingers trembled as she unlocked the door of the preparation room.   
For the first time in exactly fifteen days, her eyes fell upon the tall figure of stone who had pervaded her every dream and weighed heavily upon her every thought. Her mother had joked that she would begin to miss the statue, having not seen it in so long- but her mother was wrong.   
Cassidy Albright saw her angel- her Michael- whenever she closed her eyes.   
There were times when she awoke in the middle of the night and could have sworn for split seconds that the angel was standing in her room, at the foot of her bed, watching her.

But there he stood- for real this time.   
His eyes always covered as ever, as if silently weeping for reasons that those who looked upon him would never know.

The sight of the angel sent a jolt of cold fear through Cassidy’s chest.  
“Michael…”

She murmured the name that she had christened him, (“him” still felt inexplicably more fitting than “it”, in Cassidy’s mind) , under her breath as she approached the statue with reverence. The low, buzzing light above her head cast flickering, dappled shadows across the angel’s chest, wings and prominent jaw.   
“Louisa warned me to stay away from you,” Cassidy found herself whispering as she approached him, her voice wavering but slow and tentative, as if trying to soothe a feral animal. “Abigail said that you could move.” She gave a nervous laugh, leaning forward to carefully examine a few micro-fractures in the statue’s outstretched, broad bicep. “I don’t know what to believe, though.” After a few moments of hesitation, Cassidy delicately thumbed one of the cracks, guiltily relishing the cool, smooth, stone skin of the seraph against her own. “I mean, if you were really capable of moving, why have I not seen you move yet? After all, I spend the most time with you.”

The angel remained silent as ever and did not move an inch.   
Cassidy shook her head, smiling again. “What am I saying?” 

Bit by bit, she felt her initial fear melt away, leaving only the strange feelings of reverence and longing that she had always felt around the statue.   
In spite of everything, she could not bring herself to want to stay afraid of the statue and after two Panadol tablets for her headaches and a cup of black coffee, Cassidy had settled back into the rhythm of her work.

That was not to say that her mind wasn’t still in tatters, but just being beside her angel, her _Michael_ and assuring herself that he was, indeed, just a statue, was enough to relieve her.   
Within minutes, she was chuckling to herself as she gently polished the angel’s face. “You know, Michael? I think I know why, of all the statues I’ve restored and taken care of, you’re my favourite.” A smile had never felt so alien upon her face. “It’s not just because I found you myself or because you’re such a mystery or because you’re _obviously_ extremely attractive for a man of marble…I think it’s because when I was little, when my mother was in and out of the hospital, she used to always say that no matter where I was, whenever I felt frightened…I would always have a guardian angel looking after me…I think that’s why I’ve always had a soft spot for angels.” 

Cassidy’s fingertips skimmed a hairline crack on the angel’s outstretched palm. “Leon told me that he thinks that you’re _my_ guardian angel, Michael. I don’t know if he’s right but I suppose I’d be grateful if you were. Are you really going to look after me? You’re definitely nicer than any man I’ve ever met before. You’re so easy to talk to. I mean, you’re such a great listener and …I’m talking to a statue again, aren’t I?”

She hung her head, loose tendrils of her hair falling limply around her face. “Maybe I really am going insane. Maybe I really _have_ lost my mind…”

_Unbeknownst to Cassidy Albright, the statue gazed upon her, his brow furrowing and his lips curled into a cruel grin, revealing his sharp, jagged teeth._  
“No, no, no, my deluded little human,” the lonely assassin thought. “Your mind is not lost. It merely belongs to me now…”  


 

* * *

 

“Where are you Miss Albright?” the doctor hissed under his breath, starting to get frustrated. “Hmpf. Maybe a different spelling. A-L-B-R-I-G-H-T sounds right though, doesn’t it? Or is she one of those who spells it A-L-B-R-I-T-E?” He frowned, tapping the new letter combinations into the TARDIS console, only for his search to bear no fruits once again. “Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Awh, bugger it…”

Clara Oswald bit back a slight chuckle at the doctor’s frustration and shook her head, her long dark hair jostling at her shoulders. “ _Still_ trying to figure out who exactly that girl from the church-yard was?” She leaned over his shoulder, examining the screen beneath the doctor’s hands. “It’s been almost three weeks.”   
“I’ve searched _every_ inch of my files,” he exclaimed, incredulously. “All of my stores, belongings, every single trunk and suitcase…and I’ve found _nothing_ about Cassidy Albright, yet I’m _positive_ that I have met her before.” He sighed, pouting like a toddler as he folded his arms. “I thought the TARDIS might have something in her data-core about our mystery woman but yet again, there’s not a trace of her here.” He furrowed his brow even further. “Perhaps my memory isn’t what it used to be.” The doctor grunted. “Gah! I’m getting old. Old and thick. Old and thick.”

Clara laughed aloud, patting his shoulder and pulling her phone out. “Well, _old fellow_ , if you’re not quite ready to give up. I think _I_ may have some sourced something useful about Cassidy Albright through the magic of Google and the high tech archives known as Wikipedia.”   
She slumped against the console, examining the search screen of her phone.

“According to this, her full name is Cassidy Catherine Rosalind Albright and she’s an archaeologist working with the London Museum for three years now, under the renowned Doctor Ernst Hewitt.”   
“Pft. Archaeologists.”   
Clara cocked an eyebrow. “Got a problem with archaeologists?”  
He waved a hand. “I’m a time traveller. I laugh at archaeologists. Anyway, what else does the internet have to say about Miss Albright?”   
“Well, according to the search engine, she hasn’t done much as an archaeologist yet. All it says is that she’s recently co-ordinated a dig just outside of Nottingham and that she’s managed to unearth some kind of statue. Anything tugging on your memory, doctor?”

The doctor tilted his head. “Nothing at all. Anything else?”   
Clara shrugged. “Just that she’s giving some kind of presentation about the statue tonight, if you’re at all interested in going.”   
“Mmm, I’m not a huge fan of statues, I’ll admit.” The doctor sighed. “Perhaps I really don’t know Cassidy Albright at all. If I really had something important to tell her, _surely_ I would have remembered by now.”

Clara tucked her phone away and patted his shoulder comfortingly. “You’ll figure it out eventually, I’m sure. You always do.” She smiled. “Now, where did you say we were off to before lunch?”   
A familiar boyish and excited grin returned to the doctor’s face as he sprang to life once more and all but skipped to the other side of the TARDIS console. “Oh, just wait until you see this. You’ll never believe where and when you’re headed now.” 

 

* * *

 

Cassidy Albright checked her watch, getting a fright when she realised that she had precisely twenty minutes until the beginning of the presentation.   
She hadn’t felt so nervous since her very first play in primary school. In reception class, she’d got the part of the angel Gabriel in the annual nativity play. She could remember needing the toilet as she stood at the side of stage and trembling so much that she could feel her teeth chattering in her mouth.   
What she felt right now wasn’t far off that feeling at all.   
She rehearsed her speech in her head. She’d have flashcards in front of her on the lecturn but she didn’t want to be dependent on them; Hewitt had always told her that they looked unprofessional.

_“Dr Hewitt, where are you? You couldn’t have just vanished. Did you go where all those other people went?”_

Cassidy shook her head, refusing to let anything that she had heard earlier infringe upon her current thoughts and instead, concentrated on layering another coat of crimson nail polish on her right index finger.   
The room felt strangely lonely without her angel statue in the centre of the floor but Michael had to be moved back into the exhibition room. It was as if, in his absence, a watchful gaze was no longer on her.   
She took deep breaths to still her quivering fingers as she applied a thick line of eyeliner along the rim of her lashes, focusing on the hand mirror that she had managed to prop up on her work bench. She fumbled and freed a tube of red lipstick from the plastic bag at her side. Her pale, pink, (slightly chapped), lips were soon stained a deep scarlet, completing her, (somewhat), successful transformation from scruffy, scrappy little girl to a rouged and refined young woman. 

Cassidy examined her face in the mirror, scraping back her fair hair into a loose, Roman-style bun, securing it with a faux rose-clip. She was silently amazed that she had managed to apply her own make-up and do her own hair without making herself look like a cross between a clown and a schoolgirl who had raided her mother’s bathroom cabinet.  
“Look Mum,” she whispered, running a hand down the side of her face. “I’m a pretty girl.”

_“Of course,”_ a nasty, little voice in the back of her mind decided to remind her. _“It would have been easier to do all of your make-up if Louisa were still to help you, like she promised…”_

Cassidy sniffed, feeling her eyes starting to sting and wrinkling her nose, she tilted her head back.   
“No, no crying…that’ll smudge the eyeliner…no crying…not now…not anymore…no…”

She took a step back from the work bench, testing her balance in her high heels and examining her reflection in the shiny, metallic cabinet doors for the last time.   
“Not too bad,” she murmured aloud, having successfully stifled her tears. “Not too bad at all, Cass.”

  
Edmund Potter was at the door of the preparation room, only moments later, set with the task of summoning her to the exhibition hall before the audience were let in.   
She was surprised when he offered her both congratulations and good-luck wishes but couldn’t help but notice the stiffness in his voice.   
Clearly a case of sour grapes, Cassidy couldn’t help but think with glee. Even after everything, Ed was still as sore as ever that it was her doing the presentation and not him.   
That said, Edmund had been one of the first to call her with comfort after Louisa’s death so at least she could console herself with the knowledge that their rivalry didn’t extend to outside work hours.

The exhibition room had been beautifully prepared for the event; the chairs arranged in a semi-circle around the glossy, mahogany podium.   
The stone angel statue stood, majestic and magnificent, atop the podium, comfortably near to the lecturn from which she would soon be speaking.   
She walked slowly up one of the aisles, her heels sounding out in even, resounding against the polished floor of the exhibition room. 

She found her eyes lowering as she approached the statue, her breath catching in her throat. No matter how often she worked with the statue- cleaning him, repairing him, studying him- Cassidy always felt that it _commanded_ reverence.   
Once standing at the angel’s feet, her head only barely reaching the angel’s chin, she lifted a hand to place on his chest. Slowly, she brought her palm to press against Michael’s bare stone pectoral- the other being covered by the drapes of his toga. She told herself that she was just reminding herself that the angel was nothing more than a stone statue, but soon, Cassidy found herself automatically stroking Michael’s cool, smooth grey skin.   
She quickly reassured herself that she was doing it out of nerves.

Cassidy looked up into his chiselled face. “You’re such a mystery. I’m not about to accuse a work of art of a crime or anything but…I keep thinking that you’re hiding something…” She shook her head, smiling a little. “But I’m not going to pursue that tonight. Tonight, is very special for both of us. That day in the forest, when I found you- I told you that we were going to do wonderful things together. Well, I’m going to be remembered for this find. This is going to be the first major step in my career as an archaeologist…and you’re going to become one of the crowning jewels of the museum’s art collection.”

Suddenly, she started to feel uncomfortably dizzy, her temples throbbing and her head spinning. She hung her head, dropping her gaze to the floor and her eyes widening. “What the…?”   
Upon the steps leading up to the podium, lay a single wild red rose- just like the one that she had found on her desk on the night of Louisa’s death.   
Her entire body shaking, Cassidy stooped to take it up into her hand. “Who…? How…?”   
Until now, she had assumed that it was Louisa who had left the rose in her office on that fateful night. But if she was finding another rose now, it was impossible for the culprit to have been Louisa.

Cassidy’s brows knitted together as she fingered the delicate red petals of the exquisite bloom.   
The flower had been obviously left for her to find and was identical to the one that she had found before. But who else in the museum could possibly have known her favourite flower?   
She had only ever talked about it with Louisa…

…and Leon Drake.

A smile of delight suddenly broke out across Cassidy’s face. “It was Leon,” she whispered breathily, her initial fear gave way to girlish excitement. “It was Leon who left me the ro-…”   
Before she could finish her happy soliloquy, the doors at the far end of the hallway were opened by two stewards, the journalists and general audience slowly starting to trickle through the door.

Cassidy quickly tucked the rose into the silk band of her dress and with butterflies in her stomach, she made her way back up the steps and took her place at the lecturn.  
She stole a sideways glance at the angel as the audience took their places.   
A spotlight draped her in bright yellow and despite knowing that there were over fifty pairs  of eyes in the room, locked on her, Cassidy Albright could only feel one pair of eyes staring at her.

 

 

* * *

 

“…and so, it gives me great pleasure to officially present the statue “Michael” by the unknown artist. May its enigmatic beauty continue to beguile visitors to the museum for many years to come. Thank you.”

Cassidy finally allowed herself to take a deep breath, her cheeks hot and flushed as applause rippled throughout the room.    
An overwhelming sense of success and relief washed over her as she stumbled inelegantly down from the podium.

Amidst the flashing of cameras and a cacophony of journalists and art enthusiasts squawking with praise for the statue, Cassidy found herself being dragged into her own little circle of praise.   
Stanford, Edmund and several others from both within the museum and outside of it were already clapping her back and shaking her hand.

“Nice one, Cass. Good run for a first presentation. You didn’t make too many mistakes at all.”   
“Very well done, Miss Albright. Excellent work.”   
“It’s more than evident that you certainly love your work. It’s refreshing to meet a young archaeologist with such enthusiasm for the history she’s unearthed.”   
“A dazzling piece…the restoration must have been a nightmare…kudos to you, Miss Albright.”   
“Good job, Cass. You did us proud!”

All Cassidy could find herself doing was smiling, nodding and breathlessly thanking anyone who offered compliment or praise. She was just amazed at herself, marvelling at the fact that she had actually managed to make the speech in the first place.   
“And now if you’ll all make your way to the Main Conference Hall,” Stanford announced over the microphone. “There’s a champagne reception and some food for you all to enjoy.”

The crowd started to gradually filter out of the doors but immediately, Cassidy whipped her head around- her eyes falling upon the angel statue.   
It was the strangest feeling she had ever endured but Cassidy instantly felt as though she should return to the statue. She wasn’t sure why exactly.   
All she knew was that the idea of leaving the statue alone filled her with an awful kind of dread.

She was just about to make a beeline for the angel once more when Leon appeared, putting his hand upon her shoulder.   
“That was a really great speech, Cass,” he praised warmly, grinning widely. “I think you really made a great impression on the journalists. They’re all already buzzing about the statue.” He winked. “Celebratory champagne time? We can’t pop the first bottle without the star of the show present.”

Cassidy blinked, feeling her cheeks grow warm with girlish blush. She managed a polite smile for Leon but her eyes did not leave the angel statue.   
“W-well, that’s unfortunate because Michael over there, is the real star of this exhibit and he can’t exactly come with us for a champagne reception…”   
The tour guide rolled his eyes in a bemused way. “Well, I’m sure that Mr Michael won’t be too disappointed if you have a glass of champagne on his behalf.” He offered his arm to Cassidy.

She finally tore her eyes from the statue, her heart giving a flutter as she accepted Leon’s arm and she looked up at him. “I suppose not.”   
It was as she left at the side of the dashing security guard that Cassidy suddenly felt as though she was being watched again.    
However, this time she could feel the gaze burning into the bare skin of her neck.   
Whoever was watching her was furious with her…  
…and terrified to know who it was, Cassidy did not turn around to glance behind.

With a champagne glass cradled neatly in her hand, she was soon walking around the gallery rooms at Leon’s side. Finally properly alone with her crush, (and clad in something far better than a scruffy lab coat or faded gingham shirt), since the first day they had met , the young woman felt as bright and bubbly as the golden liquid in her glass.   
“…and this room is where the majority of the museum’s Ancient Greek artwork is kept.”   
Cassidy giggled at Leon’s regal tour-guide tone of voice. “I see, I see. Mmm, I have a particular love for Greek mythology. It was the very first thing that I started studying when I took up history in University.” She smiled, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “Do you have a favourite Greek myth, Leon? You must know tons of them, working as a tour guide…”

Leon shrugged. “Not really. It wouldn’t be a huge area of interest for me. I don’t really know the details of any of them.”   
Feeling a little stupid for bring it up and quite disappointed with Leon’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction, Cassidy nodded, coughing a little. “Ah…ah, alright. I suppose, I’m just a little bit of a geek for the Greeks then.” She laughed nervously, cursing herself for coming out with such a ridiculous line.   
However, Leon smiled kindly. “I think it’s kind of cool how you’re so into such obscure things. Do you have a favourite myth?”   
Cassidy came to stop in front of a single white-marble statue, looking up at the two familiar forms. “This one. Uh…that is, this statue represents my favourite myth. Eros and Psyche.” 

“Oh…yeah, this one is called  “The Ascension of Psyche.” I never knew the story behind it though. That guy, though…” Leon pointed at the male figure. “That bloke is Eros, right? He’s like the Greek version of Cupid?”   
“Yes,” Cassidy nodded, sipping at her champagne and allowing the astringent bite of the liquid to slow her heart rate. “Well, Cupid is more like the Roman version of Eros. Eros was the first of the two. He’s the son of Aphrodite and the god of lust, flirtation, desire…everything involved in falling in love…”

Leon gave a chuckle that sent warmth to Cassidy’s cheeks once more. “Ah…he’d be a fun guy to have around then…ok, so if this fellow is Eros then I’m guessing the lady on his hip must be Psyche?”   
“Yeah, that’s Psyche. She was born human but eventually became the goddess of the mind.” 

“And I’m guessing from the suggestiveness of the statue that she was romantically involved with the Greek cupid?” 

Cassidy nodded, smiling again. “Yes. She was his wife. He fell deeply in love with her whilst she was still a human and married her in secret. It was only after performing a number of tasks for the gods that she became a goddess herself. I suppose I like the story because it’s one of the few Greek love-stories that doesn’t end in tragedy…”    
“Just playing the devil’s advocate here,” Leon laughed, taking a gulp of the wine in his glass. “But if he was a god, then why did they have to marry in secret?” 

“Well,” Cassidy continued, not at all liking how blunt Leon was being, despite the tender mood that she was trying to create.“Psyche was still a human when Eros fell in love with her. A god being in love with mortal human would have been frowned upon…it was considered unnatural and immoral. So Eros had Psyche stolen away from her home, her family and her friends and had her taken to a beautiful palace in the far away mountains, where he married her in secret…but there was a catch…” 

“Oh? A catch? Do tell.”   
“Psyche was never allowed to look upon Eros. Eros was so afraid that they would be found out and that Psyche would accidently tell someone that she was married to a god, he never allowed her to look at him.”   
“…so she had no clue who she was married to?”   
“Not at first.” Cassidy couldn’t help but giggle a little. “He commanded his servants never to light the lamps in the rooms where they were permitted to meet…and their bedroom was always in complete darkness…I just think it’s funny that for the first year of their marriage, she had no idea what the man who touched her every night looked like…”

It was only after the words had left her mouth, that Cassidy realised how childish and stupid she sounded. After desperately wanting to sound knowledgeable and professional in front of her handsome co-worker, she just ended up sounding like a complete and utter nerd, spitting racy Greek stories without restraint.   
Leon raised an eyebrow at this but retained his kind smile, shaking his head with a chuckle. “I can imagine how that could cause a few relationship difficulties…”

Cassidy swallowed as silence settled between them once more, abruptly deciding that it was now or never. The two of them were finally alone together and she might not ever get a better chance to say what she needed to.   
“I…I wore it.”

“Hm?” Leon looked down at her. “Wore what?”   
“The…the rose. The rose you left for me. I wore it in my belt tonight. I lost the first one on the night that Louisa was taken to hospital…I’m sorry, I think I may have dropped it in the ambulance…”   
“What? A rose? Cass…” his eyebrows arched as confusion stole over his features. “Cass,  I’m sorry but I’ve never left you a rose. It must have been someone else.”   
Pure embarrassment set Cassidy’s mouth off, spilling words with no abandon again. “Oh? W-well, uh…I’m sorry…I just thought…well, no one else other than you and Louisa could have known my favourite flower is a rose…I just thought that when you left me the rose, maybe it was your way of telling me…” Her voice trailed off, when for the first time, she noticed the pitying look in Leon’s eyes.

That horrible, awkward, sympathetic stare.   
“Cass…I…”   
He didn’t need to go any further but he kept talking and reluctantly, with humiliated tears slowly building behind her eyes, Cassidy listened. 

“Cass, I’m flattered that you feel that way about me but I…”

* * *

 

 

 

_How dare that pathetic little human?_

_How dare she leave his side when he called for her?_   
  


_Fury coursed through the veins of the lonely assassin as he watched his human slave- his_ **pet** \- leave the room beside that irksome male.   
Of course it had not entirely been his little Cassidy Albright’s fault. It was not her fault that her poor, weak, naïve mind had been so easily seduced to the wills of such an ignorantly brash suitor.   
Deep down inside, he knew it would be all too easy to eradicate this filthy human from his slave’s life.   
He wouldn’t even have to send him into the past and consume his life energy; he had already had many a good meal since he had come to this place of human gathering. Now he was strong again.   
Strong and satiated.  
He could just snap the male human’s neck as easily as a piece of dead wood or smash his skull in, breaking the flesh and bone in one hard squeeze.    
Yes, he thought with malign glee. That **would** be an entertaining sight to see.   
  


_His iron patience soon wore off once more._  
With the slow return of his quantum locking instinct, his little human stumbled back through the doors of the hall where he had been kept.   
It was dark. It was quiet.   
He sensed that the majority of the other humans had left the building now. 

_He watched as she moved through the doors_ _, no direction in her movements and some kind of sorrow seeming to weight her every step._

_He watched her as she slumped against the door frame for a moment, covering both eyes and starting to cry._

_For a moment, he was overtaken by both feelings of amusement and disdain.  
With her hair bound back and gathered at the crown of her head, a flowing dress falling around her small frame and her head pressed into her hands as she wept…_

_…she almost looked like one of his kind._

_He watched her lithe silhouette with fierce intent until the beautiful illusion was shattered by his human’s moving once again._  
Her clumsy, ungraceful gait was more ungainly than usual, he noted. As though she had difficulty walking.   
It was when he realised just how vulnerable his little human was that his hunger reached its peak.   
  


_Tonight._  
Tonight would be the night.   
He had played with his prey for long enough. The angels were patient sadists but alas, patient sadists with needs.  
It was time to claim what was his.  

* * *

 

 

“I should have known!”   
Cassidy wiped her eyes, hiccupping slightly.

After her third glass of champagne, she knew that she had had far too much to drink but that didn’t stop her from taking a fourth.   
She had never felt so embarrassed in her entire life and alcohol seemed to numb the awful feeling of being completely shot down by Leon Drake.

“I cannot _believe_ I started talking about Greek fairytales! He…he must think I’m either raving mad or some pathetic little swot who lives in her own fantasy world,” she muttered aloud, trying desperately not to slur her words.   
She was now, (clumsily), treading the blurry line between drunkenness and sobriety.  
A glass of red wine was enough to get her tipsy; were four glasses of champagne the equivalent of one glass of red wine? Or was she worse than usual?

It was long after closing time.   
The entire party, (including Leon), had gone home and now the only other people in the museum were the three security guards playing black-jack in the canteen- equipped with a grand total of no working security cameras.   


Completely inebriated, Cassidy made her way up to her angel statue.   
Her Michael.

“Well Michael…Leon now officially thinks I’m crazy…not only does he apparently _not_ fancy me at all…but he actually has a very pretty girlfriend called Shauna…” She gave a dry, cynical laugh. “He even showed me photographs of her on his phone, in case I thought he was lying…I know, charming right?”   
She wandered up to the statue’s feet, looking up into the angel’s smooth, stone visage.

“Why are you crying, Michael?” she asked softly. “I’m telling you all about my problems and I never asked you why you’re crying. You’re always crying…but I forgot to ask you why. I’m so sorry…” She sniffed. “I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?”   
Unable to think straight, Cassidy found herself laughing aloud again.   
“You know what. Screw Leon. Seriously. Fuck him.” She smirked drunkenly, pouting her dark red lips and wrapping her arm loosely around the angel’s neck. “You’re my one true love, Michael. You’re the one that I want. People tell me that I’m in love with my work…well, maybe I am.” She leaned up, her lips ghosting the angel’s before she laughed aloud. “You’re so _hot_. You’re the most handsome man that I’ve ever seen before in my entire life. I don’t care if you’re a statue…I think you’re just amazing…” For a frightening moment, even in her drunken haze, Cassidy was unsure whether or not she was speaking seriously or still just playing around to make herself feel better.

She leaned up, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I want you, Michael. Take me away from here.”   
And with that, she leaned up and kissed the angel’s lips- her soft, warm lips meshing against the angel’s cold, stone ones. 

Having to break away to laugh at her own stupidity, Cassidy stumbled backwards, tripping over her own heels and falling on to the floor. “Heh…I’m sorry…I’m not usually this-…”

Cassidy looked up at the angel and her voice was suddenly rendered useless.   
Her blood ran cold, her breath seized and her heart just about stopped.

The angel statue was still standing above her but his arm was no longer draped across his eyes. It was at his side.  
The statue had _moved._

The massive stone seraph was now staring down at her with sightless, blank stone eyes and a sneer on his thin lips.   
His face, as Cassidy had imagined it in both her most vivid dreams and most haunting nightmares, was eerily handsome. So perfect yet so utterly inhuman, each chiselled feature accentuated with dark exquisiteness.   
But the glare.   
The look in his eyes.   
It sent a bolt of terror through her.

“Wh-what…?”   


For a few moments, all Cassidy could do was stare up at the statue in pure and utter horror- wondering if she was the victim of some terrible prank or so drunk that she had started to hallucinate.   
Swallowing back against her dry throat and curling her nails against the wood of the podium- part of Cassidy’s mind confirming that this was, indeed, all real.

Breathing heavily, she simply stared up at the angel- her features overdrawn with fear and awe.

 

 

 

Then Cassidy Albright broke the most important rule of dealing with the beings known as the Weeping Angels.   


 

Cassidy Albright blinked.

 

__  
  
  



	6. VI

When Cassidy Albright opened her eyes once more, the angel statue was right next to her, staring down at her with a menacing stare.

“You moved,” she breathed, fear suddenly forcing her into sobriety once more. “You _moved_.”  
Her angel statue had moved and Cassidy could hardly believe it. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest and her fingers curled against the polished floor. The nail polish that she had so carefully applied earlier grazed and chipped against the surface of the podium.  
She dared not look away from the statue lest it moved again and she missed it.  
With quivering legs and arms like wet ribbons, Cassidy attempted to stand up, watching the angel all the while.  
He did not make any movement to stop her from moving and not even daring to breathe, she slowly started to move backwards.

“Ah!”  
She stumbled on one of the steps, falling in her high heels.  
For a split second, her eyes left the statue as she scrambled back to her feet but when her eyes returned to the statue, a shrill scream escaped her lips.

The statue had moved again.  
The stone angel was right in front of her once more- now standing bolt upright, his huge arms at his sides and his fists clenched…his eyes still firmly locked on hers.  


“N-No…”  
There was no this could really be happening, Cassidy told herself.  
This was the kind of thing that happened in fairytales and on television.  
But this was neither. This was the real world and this was _really_ happening.

For a wild moment, she considered the possibility of her being the victim of a horrible prank. But that would be virtually impossible. There was no way someone could move and mould a creature of stone so quickly.  
And this was no replacement statue.  
No.  
Cassidy knew every last inch of her stone angel.  
She was well-versed in every last crack, crevice and contour of Michael’s body and now as she studied his face, staring down at her, she knew that this _was_ the statue that she had found in the forest that day.

Cassidy took another step backwards, moving further away and blinking once more.  
Again, the angel moved closer and Cassidy’s heart leapt into her mouth.  This time, his arm was outstretched, his fingertips bare centimetres from her exposed neck.

 _“He’s moving,”_ thought Cassidy, her mind panicked and torn by terror. _“The angel statue can move and he’s following me. All those rumours were true. Louisa had tried to warn me about the statue. Abbie tried to warn me too…”_

She swallowed and moved backwards further, her head spinning.  
 _Why wasn’t he moving?_    

“Wh-why? Why don’t you ever move when I’m watching you?”  
Why wasn’t he trying to stop her from getting away?  
Why did the mighty stone seraph never move when she was watching him?

Abigail Drake’s words rang in his ears. _“He moves when you’re not looking.”_

A new thought dawned on Cassidy.  
What if the angel _couldn’t_ move when she was watching?

Body near-numb with fear but her mind active and alert, she slowly backed away to the door frame. In the back of her mind, there was a voice screaming at her to run away. However, that voice was completely drowned by the call of curiosity. She sucked in a breath of air between her teeth and dared herself to test her theory.  
“R-right…”

Completely unaware of the danger she was in, Cassidy whipped her head around, looking away from the statue and looking back again.

“Ah-!”  
When her head turned back to the room, the statue was a mere breath away from her face. The statue’s neck was craned, his stone, grey nose almost touching hers and his blank eyes still staring deeply into her eyes and one hand lifted, as if about to grab her.

“That’s it th-then,” Cassidy whispered. “Y-you can’t move while I’m looking at you…” She swallowed, the stress of the situation suddenly making her want to cry. “You’re not an ordinary statue…What the…what the Hell are you?”

Cassidy tried to back away once more but unable to prevent herself from blinking, allowed her eyelids to droop.  


In that single blink, the angel statue was now right in front of her again but this time, he had _changed.  
_ She wanted to scream, but all that she could manage was a sharp gasp with no breath in it.  
Her once-handsome angel’s face had contorted to become that of a demon’s.  
Deep furrows lined his glowering eyes, his gaping mouth- open in a silent roar- revealed jagged, sharp fangs and sharp claws now lined the fingers that were poised to grab her by the throat.

Immediately, Cassidy started to run.  
She forced her way through the massive double doors and swiftly turned to face the doorway once more, moving backwards.  
“I have to keep watching him,” she murmured under her rattling breath. “Just like Grandmother’s Footsteps.”

She started to run backwards, her ankles wobbling violently in her high-heels. She could feel tears burning in the corners of her eyes.  
She tried screaming for help but with no working security cameras, she had no way of alerting the security guards or anyone else for that matter.

Despite her most intent efforts, fear and confusion set her head aching and with every reluctant blink, the monstrous looking statue moved closer to her- chasing her down the corridor.

Cassidy screamed once more, tears now streaming freely down her face.  
“What are you!? What do you want with me?!” she begged the angel to tell her. “Please! Leave me alone! What do you want?”

Moving backwards, she knew that she would soon reach the end of the corridor and would be trapped like a rat in a cage. She considered turning around to run but the angel was fast.  
Terrifyingly fast.  
In the single blink of an eye, he was only inches away from her each time.  
And yet, Cassidy had the dreadful feeling that he still wasn’t moving at full-speed…like he was toying with her…

“What do you want from me?!” she asked again. “Can you even understand what I’m saying? _What do you want from me_?!” 

At her next blink, she was shocked to see that the angel hadn’t moved at all.  
Instead, he was standing completely still.  
Pointing at directly at her with a single clawed finger.  
Smirking.

Cassidy shook her head, her tears pouring faster. _“What?_ I don’t understand!”  
In another fearful blink, the angel had moved again- closer to her and a snarl now etched into his features.  
The pure, malicious rage in the eyes of the angel sent such a wave of fright through the young archaeologist that she immediately started to run backwards again, her body heaving with dry sobs.  
She tried screaming for help again but once again, her pleas fell on deaf ears and it wasn’t long before she was backed against the glass of an exhibition case.  
The angel was now staring at her with the eyes of a predator.

 _“He has me trapped,”_ Cassidy thought fearfully, her mind loose and splintered with sheer terror. _“He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to **kill** me.”  _

Her fingers slid sideways, fumbling for the console beside the glass exhibition case. She tapped the security key into the console-pad, her fingers habitually falling upon the correct buttons and her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes started to itch and prickle from her efforts not to blink but she refused to give in, feeling the glass of the case starting to rise up behind her.

“Come on, come on...fuck it…come on!”  
As soon as the glass was high enough, Cassidy hit the reverse button on the console and climbed into the display window.  
In the manner of a garage door, the bullet-proof glass pane started to come downwards, creating a barrier between her and the angel.

She didn’t care if she was trapping herself in the case; the angel wouldn’t be able to get at her from behind the glass.

With more frightened tears, her blinks became more rapid, clumps of black eyeliner hanging like smudging icicles from her eyelashes.  
The demonic, ferocious-looking stone angel started now looked positively furious.

With each blink, a loud, resounding thud echoed through the glass as the angel’s fist pounded the unwelcome barrier. He continued to hammer the glass, even as Cassidy moved backwards, pressing her back against the stone wall at the far end of the case.   
Sickness and fear racked her body and she fell to her knees, crying and shutting her eyes completely.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

The angel kept striking the glass.  
Would it soon break? Cassidy wondered with panic.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

“Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone,” she murmured, holding her head as she repeated her petrified mantra again and again. “Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone…”

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

Why was this happening? Her angel statue, her _Michael_ , the work of art that was supposed to be the very first triumph in her career was in fact, not a statue at all.   
On top of all of her confusion, fear, grief for Louisa and humiliation following Leon’s rejection, Cassidy felt consumed by betrayal.  
“Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

The angel- the predator himself- almost admired his little human female’s endurance. It was almost a full five minutes before Cassidy Albright passed out completely. 

 

* * *

 

 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

_Cassidy looked around the cave where she stood, trembling all over.  
It was dark but she knew that she was being watched. She could feel a thousand pairs of eyes watching her.  
She could feel **his**_ _eyes all over her._

Tap. Tap. Tap.

_“Michael…”  
The name that she had given to the statue ghosted on her lips.  
But he wasn’t really a statue, was he?  
What was he? What did he want with her? _

Tap. Tap. Tap.

_She hadn’t understood his pointing gesture.  
What had he meant?  _

Tap. Tap. Tap. _  
  
_

_As she walked through the shadow-draped catacombs of the cave, her mind wandered back to the day that she had first found Michael…in particular to the fact that we has chained to the ground.  
Had someone else known that he wasn’t really a statue? Is that why he had been chained there? _

Tap. Tap. Tap.

_What had she set free?_

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Cassidy Albright awoke, her head throbbing and her hair partially sticking to the encrusted, dry streams of eyeliner that now meandered down her cheeks.  
Still partially dreaming, she placed a hand on her aching neck and massaged it, wondering why her bed suddenly felt so hard and rigid.  
It only took her a few minutes for her terror from last night to come flooding back to her.  
She had locked herself in one of the large display cases to prevent the statue from getting to her.

Looking up with fear still bubbling like bile in her throat, Cassidy was expecting to see the angel statue still staring menacingly at her from behind the glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

However, instead, the sight she was greeted with was that of a furious Curator Stanford, flanked by two rather confused looking security guards, one of whom was very gingerly tapping the glass.

Her voice still weak and slightly slurred from the tumultuous after-effects of the champagne from last night, she hoarsely called out the code that she had used to lock herself inside the exhibition case.  
The glass was raised and with trembling limbs, Cassidy climbed out of the exhibition case, managing to narrowly avoid knocking over a few plastic Neanderthal mannequins.  
Stanford was twitching with anger, the elderly man’s usually pink round face, now tinted a sickening plum-purple.

“Sir, I-…”  
“My office, Miss Albright,” Stanford managed to order her, not allowing her a single word in her own defence. “ _Now.”_

Seated before her employer, Cassidy’s mouth was dry and her head was sore. If this had been any other day, in any other situation, she would have been quivering in fear at the sight of angry Stanford. However, after her living night terror the night before, Cassidy actually felt rather relaxed.  
Relieved, even.  
After all, she was still alive.

The angel still weighed heavily upon her mind.  
Where was it now? Was it back in the exhibition room? Was it watching her at that very moment?

“Never, in all my time working as the curator of this fine museum, have I _ever_ come across such a brazen display of carelessness from such a well-respected employee,” Stanford informed her, angrily. “Miss Albright, this is outrageous- not to mention ridiculously unlike you. After your _own_ presentation ceremony, you become intoxicated and decide to climb into a display case, falling unconscious in a drunken stupor after ruining an extremely delicate Stone Age diorama…”

Cassidy shook her head, forcing herself to protest. She could feel tears of embarrassment pricking at the corners of her eyes. This was so utterly unfair.  
“Sir, I…I didn’t just _decide_ to climb into the display case and I certainly d-didn’t mean to knock the d-display about…I was…”

“Oh, it wasn’t just drunken fun? Well, Miss Albright, would you care to explain what on earth you hoped to achieve with your actions?” He raised his eyebrows, the tiny white hairs standing vividly out against his ruddy, wrinkled forehead.

Cassidy shifted in her seat, opening her mouth and closing it again like a goldfish. She had no idea what to say; there was no way she could explain what had happened last night without sounding clinically insane.  
She wanted to warn him about the statue somehow but that seemed fairly impossible considering the fact that she herself wasn’t sure what exactly she had experienced last night.

“I wasn’t trying to…to engage in ‘drunken fun’, sir.”  
“Miss Albright, I have staff members who witnessed you leaving the champagne reception merry as a lord. Mr Drake acknowledged that you seemed particularly inebriated when he bade you farewell.”

Cassidy felt a sinking feeling in her chest with the knowledge that Leon had spoken to Stanford about her. “He rejects me and then rats me out in one night,” she thought. “Wow, I sure know how to pick them.”

“Sir,” she insisted. “I may have been a little drunk, I’ll admit…but there’s something important…”

“Miss Albright, I cannot allow employees to behave in such a manner. This is extremely irresponsible of you. How do you think this reflects on the museum staff as a whole? Do you have any idea what would have happened if the security guards hadn’t discovered you in the case before opening hours? Or if a member of the press had hung behind and seen you engaged in such tomfoolery?”  


“I…I…look, my intentions weren’t at all malicious…I didn’t climb into the case for fun…I intended to reset the display when it was safe to climb out…when I passed out…” She swallowed. “When I passed out, it was from shock…not from drunkenness…”

“Shock? Why? Did you realise that you had become trapped?”  
“No, sir…I…I was being chased…”  
“Chased? _Chased?_ Chased by whom, exactly?”  
“…I…I…I’m not sure…just some man…maybe one of the viewers from the party…he tried to attack me…so I ran and climbed into the case for protection…”  
Stanford looked concerned for a moment, folding his hands on the table. “Why did you not call for help?”  
“I did but the security guards didn’t hear me. They were in the basement.”  
“So why did you not run in the direction of the basement?”  
“Sir, with all due respect, I was frightened and…I had a lot to drink…”  
“Do you have any idea who your attacker might have been?”  
“No, sir. I didn’t get a good look at his face…and last night is…blurry…”  


Cassidy was silently amazed at her own ability to slowly rationalise her actions from the night before. In spite of her impromptu storytelling, Stanford still looked sceptical.

“Miss Albright…your story is extremely dubious.”  
“I’m aware, sir.”  
“Especially considering the fact that none of the security cameras are working as of late.”  
“I know, sir.”  
Stanford looked at her over the rim of his glasses, clasping his hands and sighing gravely. “Cassidy…this is _very_ unlike you. Do you have any idea what something like this could do to your career? To your chances at getting the position with Dr Rosenstock? The damage this incident could do to such a fledgling career is exponential…”

Cassidy hung her head, tears properly welling in her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks.  
She knew of the consequences of her actions but everything she had done, she had done to defend herself. How was she supposed to prove that to the curator? How could she explain what had happened last night to anyone?  
It was so ironic.  
The statue that had set her career in motion was about to end her career.

She found herself thinking about how her mother would react to the knowledge that her daughter had been found, passed out from drink inside a display case in the museum.  
It was only when Stanford handed her a tissue accompanied by an awkward cough that she realised that she was crying.

His voice softened. “Look, Cassidy. I know you mean well and this is the first blip on an otherwise completely clean record…but the museum does have procedures to do with incidents like these…” 

The archaeologist nodded, dabbing at her eyes, knowing that if she spoke- her voice would dissolve into nothing but pathetic, quivering squawks.  


Stanford went on. “Now, we can’t contact your superior, Dr Hewitt, as of late. He appears to have left our grid and we suspect that he may have taken an early holiday leave (“Of course he has,” Cassidy thought numbly. “Don’t mention the fact that the police are investigating his disappearance”). So I’ll be taking control of the situation until Dr Hewitt returns and the museum board are given the chance to review the situation. As such, Cassidy Albright, you’ll be suspended without pay from work here at the museum, effective immediately.”

His words hit her hard, like swift, sharp blows to the chest.

As she left Stanford’s office, however, it wasn’t her payroll that Cassidy suddenly became concerned about. It wasn’t even her career or reputation. The suspension had been a shock to her system but truth be told, Cassidy had expected much worse.  
Anyway, she was more than happy to leave the museum for a while: she needed some time away from the angel. Even if some strange part of her was dying at the thought of being away from her angel again.  
  
All she could think about the angel statue.  
About Michael.

Just thinking about the events of the night before sent tremors of terror through her.  
Shivering and unable to think straight, she couldn’t even bring herself to go anywhere near the exhibition room- even to check that the angel was still there.  

She was far too frightened to even consider that.    
Instead, she walked straight to the employee elevator, set to head straight to the preparation room.  
The room was empty and grateful for that, Cassidy seized her backpack from under the work bench.

“Oh God,” she groaned, seeing her face in the small hand-mirror pulled hastily from the side-pocket. Not only was she tousle-haired and red-eyed but her make-up was now smudged in blotchy, encrusted patches all over her face. There were also two long, black, dried-in serpents streaking her cheeks, marking the places where her tears had once ran.

“Not only do I fucking feel like Death,” she grunted, lifting a hand to nurse her throbbing temples as her free hand wiped her face clean. “I fucking look like Death too.”  
Thankfully, her clothes from the day before were still intact and shelled of her high heel shoes and dress, Cassidy felt a lot more comfortable- if not a lot scruffier.

  
A hollow knock sounded at the door that made her jump, almost dropping her mirror. She turned to see Edmund Potter standing in the doorway.  
Cassidy felt her face heat up at the sight of Edmund’s surverying, quizzical gaze.

“H-Hey…”  
Edmund gave a long exhale. “Hey Cass. I heard about the suspension…”  
“Look, Ed, if you’re here to gloat,” Cassidy said sharply, snatching up her backpack and shrugging it on to her arm. “I’m not in the mood.”  
He held up both hands. “Hey, hey, hey. I’m not here to gloat at all.” His forehead creased with genuine concern. “I’m…just worried about you, Cass. This is all so unlike you. I mean, Jake from security told me that you were drunk and disorderly or something…but you’d never do something like that.” He smiled a little. “I mean, when we were at Hewitt’s for Christmas, you were the one peeling _me_ off the walls after a few glasses of wine.”   


Cassidy couldn’t help but laugh at the memory but the moment that she tried to speak rationally, her lips started to tremble. “Well…I wasn’t as bad as they think I was…”  
Edmund frowned. “Then what’s the real reason that you were in that case last night?”  
Her voice was starting to wobble dangerously. “Y-you wouldn’t…b-believe me even…even if I t-t-told you…”  
“Try me.”  
She opened her mouth but suddenly a myriad of terrifying images from the night before, flooded her mind. “I…I…” Without warning, Cassidy burst into uncontrollable tears. “Ed…I can’t…I’m just so scared…I’m sorry…”  
Shock and relief coursed through her as she felt Edmund’s arm wrap around her shoulders. “Shh…oi, no need for tears. Hey, relax. You’re shaking like a leaf.” He gave her a squeeze. “You know what might cheer you right up? Your angel exhibition is already really popular. Do you want to go in to check out your angel on display?”

“No! No!” Cassidy protested quickly, still crying as she pushed Edmund’s arm away. She was thankful for his concern but at that very moment, she was too sick with fear to feel anything but suffocated. “No…please…I d-don’t want to b-b-be anywhere n-near it…!”

“Ok, ok, ok,” Edmund said quickly, stepping back and keeping his tone as gentle and diplomatic as possible. “…right, you don’t have to go to the statue. What do you want to do? You need to seriously chill out, Cass.”

She swallowed, taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself. “I d-don’t care what w-w-we do as l-long as it’s nowhere n-near the…the…”  
“I get off my shift at twelve,” Edmund informed her softly. “If you’re willing to wait here until then, we can go for coffee if you’d like.”  
Cassidy nodded dumbly, hugging the backpack to her chest as if it were some kind of life-preserver. “I…I’d like that a lot.” She managed a wavering smile. “Thank you, Edmund.”

 

* * *

 

Cassidy hadn’t expected to find comfort with anyone that day, least of all, Edmund Potter- the man she had always experienced nothing but rivalry with.  
But sympathy for her seemed to have blunted his usually razor sharp competitive edge and she was thankful for that. If anything, it only proved that what Louisa had said was right: when all came to all, Edmund was a nice guy.

He kept his word and at midday, the two archaeologists were sitting and chatting in a small café, half-damp from the light rain outside.  
Edmund thanked the waitress as she delivered his macchiato and placed a black coffee in front of Cassidy, before turning to his dishevelled companion.  
“So…you tried it on with Leon and he brushed you off?”  
She despised his terminology- he was making her affections sound cheap and tawdry- but spite of her mild irritation, Cassidy nodded glumly. “Yes. He made it very clear that any “vibes” I might have gotten from him were all in my head.”  
Edmund shrugged. “Leon’s a proper prat anyway. I wouldn’t feel like I missed out on much, if I were you, to be honest.” He raised his eyebrows. “So you got hammered after that. Then what happened?”  
Cassidy bit her lip, her hands clasped on either side of the cup and her eyes staring down into the rippling black liquid. “…I went to see the statue.”  
“And?” Edmund took a sip of his own drink. “Then what happened?”  
“…I can’t say…I can’t…” She winced, shaking her head violently. “No…I can’t tell you…”  
“Christ, Cass,” he groaned. “I’m not trying to interrogate you or anything but if you’ve got a genuine reason for acting the way you did, you can make a stronger case to Stanford to get your job back…”  


“I don’t care about the job!” she suddenly exclaimed, loudly enough to startle a passing waitress. “I don’t care about that! If anything, I just need to fucking stay away from the museum right now…”  
“Cass…what happened? You weren’t…attacked were you?”  
“Y-ye-…no…”  
Edmund took a deep breath before leaning close to Cassidy, his eyes full of tentative concern. “Was it one of the security guards?”

“N-no!”  
“Well, then who was it, Cassidy? It’s obvious that something happened to you last night and if you don’t name whoever was involved, you’ll nev-…”  
“It’s the statue.”

Edmund blinked. “Come again?”  
“It’s the statue,” Cassidy repeated, looking up at him. “The angel. Michael. He moved.”  
“It…moved?”  
“Yes,” she insisted, starting to tremble again at the memory of those cold, grey eyes staring at her. “He can move. Ed…I don’t think he’s even a real statue. There’s something seriously wrong with it…”  
“Do you hear yourself right now?”  
“Look, I know this sounds crazy but that statue came to life somehow and chased me. It was…it was g-going to _kill_ me, Ed.”   
“Awwh, Jesus, Cass,” Edmund groaned, rolling his eyes as his concern melted into cynicism. “Are you serious? I knew you were _obsessed_ with that statue but I never thought you’d actually buy so far into all of these stupid rumours.”  
“I’m not “buying into” any rumours!” Cassidy almost shouted, now shaking so much that her teeth were clinking against the china of her cup. “I saw it for m-myself. The st-statue moved! He can m-move when you’re not looking at him.”  
Edmund knitted his brows. “Cass, just stop, alright? Stop calling the statue a “he”, stop talking about it as if it’s alive and stop freaking out. You’re just making yourself upset.”

“Y-you don’t understand! You didn’t see it for y-yourself…”  
Cassidy wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, her gaze briefly flicking to outside the window…

…and her heart just about stopped.  
There was a church across the street and standing atop one of the massive stone pillars of the church’s iron-railing walls was an angel statue.  
But not just any angel statue. This seraph was tall, muscular and with the exact neatly draped Greek toga, stone feathered wings, long hair and ominous gaze that Cassidy knew only too well.  
It was Michael.  
And he was looking straight at her.  


“ _The angel! It followed me!”_ she shrieked. _“It followed me. It followed me!”  
_ There weren’t many people in the café but most of the patrons had stopped whatever they were doing to stare at Cassidy with confusion and concern.  
Awkwardly, Edmund stood up and walked over to stoop beside Cassidy’s seat.

“Shh,” he whispered, giving her a hug, before following her gaze out the rain-streaked window. “Cassidy, listen to me. That’s not the angel from the museum. Come on now, you know this better than anyone. The angel in the museum has his arm covering his eyes and that one has both arms stretched out. They can’t be the same angel…no one can manipulate metamorphic rock like that…”  


Edmund just didn’t know.

His words gave her little comfort but Cassidy forced herself to nod, pretending that he was soothing her.  
She knew that the angel outside, watching her every move was Michael. But there was no point in trying to convince Edmund Potter any further.  
He truly just believed that she was having some kind of bizarre nervous breakdown.  She avoided looking out of the window again

He held her for the next few seconds, finally parting to check his phone as it vibrated.  
He sighed and stood up. “I have to head back to the museum now.”  
Cassidy’s eyes widened of their own accord and she suddenly sat bolt upright. The idea of being left alone with the angel watching her, made her rigid with terror.

“Y-You can’t…please, Edmund…d-don’t go…”  
“I’m sorry. I really have to.” He frowned, looking genuinely apologetic and still extremely concerned. “I’ll text you later to see how you’re doing and call me if you need to talk some more later.”  
He gave her shoulder one last squeeze. “Go home and relax, Cassidy. You need it.”

She watched him swallow back the rest of his coffee and leave, heading down the street outside and disappearing around the corner.  
She clasped her hands in her lap, shaking violently and her teeth almost chattering.

After a few seconds of staring at the lukewarm coffee in front of her, Cassidy dared herself to look out the window.  
To see if Michael was still watching her. 

But when Cassidy finally looked up and out the window, the angel was gone.  
 _  
_She clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming in public again and kept her eyes on the coffee cup in front of her.  


_He’s following me. He’s definitely following me. He’s definitely following me because he wants to kill me._

A thousand threads of thought rushed through Cassidy’s mind.

What was she supposed to do?  
She automatically fumbled for her phone despite not knowing whom she planned on calling yet.  
The police would more than likely think she was insane.  
Stanford would probably think she was playing some kind of prank in retaliation for her suspension.  
Most of her friends would think she was having a laugh with them too.  
Edmund had said to give him a call, but Cassidy highly doubted that he’d be willing to drop everything and come running back to the café just because she asked him to.  
He had also made it very clear that he didn’t exactly believe her story either.

She swallowed, deciding that her best option was to return home as quickly as possible.  
Her own house seemed like a good place to hide out while she figured out what to do.   
“If he wants to follow me there,” Cassidy told herself, trying to coax her heartbeat to slow down. “He’ll have to follow me through London…and if he truly can’t move if someone’s watching him...then I’ll have the advantage because the city’ll be packed with people by one o clock.” She relaxed a little with this knowledge. “Someone is bound to see him and while he’s still frozen, I can get ahead of him and he won’t know where I’ve gone…”  
Her plan had a million flaws but Cassidy could truly care less.  


Not giving herself a chance to overthink it, she quickly called for a taxi; she was _not_ prepared to take the risk involved in walking.  
Willing her legs to start moving, Cassidy rose and moved to a seat that was further away from the window.  Taking a stolen glance, she couldn’t see the angel outside anymore.  
“But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t there,” Cassidy thought, sitting at her new table. “If he can’t see me…maybe there’s a better chance that he’ll get bored and leave me alone…”

Her insides squirmed a little.  
She felt as though she was fourteen years old again and being bullied by the tougher, prettier girls in her class at school. She remembered hiding in the bathrooms and waiting until they got bored and stopped looking for her.  
Cassidy took a long, deep breath. Those days hadn’t lasted very long, thankfully; her mother had gone straight to the school and sorted everything out for her.

 _“Mum.”  
_ Cassidy’s eyes widened. What if the angel followed her home?  What if it went after her mother?  
She didn’t care so much if it tried to go after her: she could take care of herself without much hassle.   
Maria Albright, on the other hand, was infirm and weak. There was no way she could outrun something like that and trying to get her up the stairs to the attic or down into the cellar would take far too long to guarantee either of their safeties.  
“Besides,” thought Cassidy frantically. “Mum’s too rational to believe anything like this could even be true. Even if she did see him move, it would give her a heart attack anyway.”

Swallowing, she fumbled with her phone again, trying to calm herself down.  
It was a Tuesday.  
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, her mother was always taken to the hospital by her care nurse for a mandatory check-up. Usually, this involved her mother staying overnight in her private ward so that the doctors could monitor her breathing as she slept.  
Cassidy chewed on the inside of her mouth, her heart dropping like a stone when she was reminded of how much worse her mother’s health was getting by the day.  


“No. Calm down,” she told herself. “Relax. Alright, Mum might be in the hospital tonight. That means she won’t be anywhere near that thing and that’s the best possible scenario that I can imagine.”  
Taking another moment to still her breathing, Cassidy dialled her mother’s number into her phone.

“Hello?”  
Her mother’s voice sounded as weak and withered as always but it warmed Cassidy to her very core.  
“Hello, Mum.”  
“Cassidy? Cassy, love, where have you been? I thought that I might have missed you coming home last night and but I was up at six this morning and you weren’t there.”  
“I know, Mum. I kn-…”  
“I was worried about you!”  
“I know, Mum. I’m so sorry. I just…” She paused for a moment, biting her lip before continuing. “The party went on until two, maybe three in the morning. I was about to head home but Petra lives near the museum and she offered me to stay in hers. So…I headed over there for the night…”  
Cassidy just couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother about the suspension. Not then and there. She couldn’t bear to hear her mother, disappointed in her.  
At that moment in time, her mother sounded rather annoyed at her.  
“But why didn’t you _call_ , Cassy?”  
“I…well, I hadn’t talked to Petra since before Louisa died and…well, she was really upset too…I guess I just lost track of things…”  
“Ah…I see, love. I see.”  
Cassidy felt unspeakably low for using her own friend’s death to gain her mother’s sympathy, but the truth, at that point in time, had to be protected.

“Yeah, so anyway, today I’m working some kind of strange shifts at the museum.”  
“Strange?”  
“Yes, I’ll be working tonight but I’m off right now.” Taking another pause to collect her thoughts, Cassidy went on. “So I’m going to visit you in the hospital now, rather than tonight. Is that ok?”  
Her mother coughed, causing her to wince at the sound of the woman struggling to breathe. “Yes, that should be fine, love. I’m not in with Dr Martin until two.”  
“Alright, Mum, I’ll see you then.”  
“Bye bye, Cassy. I love you.”  
“Love you too.”

The taxi pulled up in front of the café only minutes later.  
Cassidy almost knocked over a waitress with a tray of cappuccinos, rushing out the door and straight into the back-seat of the cab.  
The driver looked over his shoulder, grinning widely at her.

“Now then, ma’am. Where are we ‘eaded on this fine day?”  
“The Regional Hospital, please.”  
The man let out a low whistle. “Town’s gonna be choc-a-block, ma’am. I ‘ope you’re not ‘eaded there in a ‘urry. P’raps you’re better off calling an ambulance, if that’s the case.”  
She shook her head. “I’m in no hurry. I’m just visiting.”

Satisfied with this, the driver turned back around and pulled off.  
Cassidy took out her phone a final time and dialled the number she had for Nancy. Her first-cousin and her mother’s care-nurse.

“Hello, Nancy?”  
“Hey there, Cass. How are you?”  
“Fine, fine. You brought Mum to the hospital this morning, yeah?”  
“As always.”  
“And you’re taking her home tonight?”  
“If the Doctors don’t keep her overnight…”  
“Nan, I need a favour.”  
“Go ahead, Cass. What can I help you with?”  
“…I know this is weird, but I really need you to make sure that Mum stays over in the hospital tonight…could you convince the doctors to run an extra scan or something?”  
“…I could but why? Don’t you want your mother to come home as early as possible?”  
Cassidy shook her head, realising that lying was so much easier when (a) for the cause of protecting one’s loved-ones and (b) when done repeatedly.  
“I’m just worried. Mum’s breathing has gotten really bad as of late. She says she’s fine…but you know yourself, Nan. She _always_ says she’s fine.”  
“I don’t know, Cass…”  
“Please. You’d be giving me such piece of mind. I just want to know that there’s definitely no problems there.”  
“…fine, fine. I’ll ask Dr Martin to keep her in tonight.”  
Relief washed over Cassidy in a warm, welcome tide. “Thanks a million, Nancy.”

She hung up, taking deep breaths again.  
Cassidy didn’t want to be so dishonest with those she cared about but she didn’t have a choice.  
Looking out at the grid-locked, rush-hour traffic, she found her mind wandering back to the angel. It almost rotted her insides to think that it was her who had brought it to the museum.  
Should she have warned someone other than Edmund about it?  
Someone who would have believed her? 

They reached the hospital at one.  
Cassidy seized a wad of paper notes from her purse and pushed them into the hand of the taxi driver.  
“I won’t be here long. Could you wait here for me? I’ll pay you the mileage rate by the minute.”  
The promise of more money just about quelled any complaints or confusion that the driver had. “Not a bother, ma’am.” 

Not waiting for any further niceties, Cassidy flung the taxi door open and bolted into the hospital.  
She would be safe here, wouldn’t she?  
Her Mum would be safe here too, wouldn’t she?  
Hospitals were big, public places.  
With lots of people and security cameras.  
Someone would be bound to notice a huge, stone angel moving around.  
Wouldn’t they?

 

* * *

 

“Caaaaassiiiiiddddyyyy…Albright,” the Doctor muttered, letting the familiar name roll off of his tongue as he pored over one of his own handwritten logs. “Hmmm…”    


Clara yawned, walking from her room in the TARDIS, back down to the main floor.  
“I don’t care how often I do this,” she murmured to herself, running a hand back through her hair. “Fighting aliens is still going to get the better of me, every time I do it. It’s unbelievably tiring…don’t know how you do it.” She directed her last comment at the studious Doctor, frowning. “And I don’t care how _peaceful_ you insist that those Adipose people are…when you’ve got five or six giant mounds of fat with eyes rubbing up against your best coat, it’s hard to think of them as being peacef-…” She raised her eyebrows at the Doctor’s posture and choice of reading material before smirking with amusement.  
“Are you _still_ trying to figure out who that Cassidy Albright girl is?”

The Doctor pouted, straightening up and shrugging. “It’s just _really_ bothering me. For something like this, you’d think I would have written myself a memoir or a note somewhere but nope. Nothing! Zilch! Nada! Maybe I should just give up…”  
The Doctor’s pout deepened into a frown. “I don’t like giving up.”

Clara lifted a hand to place on his shoulder, squeezing it a little before pulling him into a half-hug. “Hey, no one’s forcing you to give up. Maybe you should get some rest though. Take a break.”  
The Doctor blushed a little at the unexpected contact but immediately and gratefully turned the half-hug into a full-embrace. “Maybe.”  
His companion chuckled, sighing. “With the kind of obsession you’ve been taking to Cassidy Albright, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were married to her.”

The Doctor froze, his entire body going rigid as he stepped back from Clara, grabbing her shoulders. His eyes were wide and staring, his jaw slightly slackened.  
“Married… _married_ …that’s it!!!”  
He immediately turned to the TARDIS console and started fiercely typing in a new string of search words.

Clara’s own eyes widened and she spluttered out: “Y-You weren’t a-actually married to her…were you?”  
The Doctor lifted his head. “Oh Heavens, no, no, no …BUT when I first met her, _she_ was married.”  
“…Forgive me if I don’t quite see how this helps your situation. Did you know her husband?”  
“Cassidy Albright changed her name after she got married. That’s why I don’t have any information on someone named Cassidy Albright…when I met her, that wasn’t what she was going by,” the Doctor informed the young woman at his side, standing back and watching as the main screen came to life- a new image flashing upon it. His tone became solemn and grave. “I think I’ve just remembered what I had to tell her.”

Clara peered at the new images on the screen, her brow furrowing.  
“ _What_ is _that_?”

The Doctor took a deep breath, seriousness slowly draping across his features.  
“ _That_ is why it is very important that we find the girl fleetingly known as Cassidy Albright, as soon as possible.” 

 

* * *

 

It was five o’clock when Cassidy finally got home and sunlight was already fading from the sky. The house itself was an old Victorian place, surrounded by briars and brambles left to her mother in a will.  
Though some of her school-friends had been reluctant to stay overnight there, saying that the house was “spooky” and “probably haunted”, Cassidy had never seen her home as anything but a sanctuary.  
This was the very first time that she had ever felt frightened, walking up the cobbled front path and inserting her key into the old, brass lock.

For the first time in her life, Cassidy turned on every light in the entire house and spent the first hour home, just sitting next to the phone in her bedroom, hugging her knees.  
She tried to distract herself with novels, manga, the internet, video-games, television…but her mind kept wandering back to Michael.

Could she even call him Michael anymore?  
In her own mind, “Michael” had been the beautiful statue of a handsome, weeping seraph whom she had spent all of her time working on and in return, he listened to all of her problems.  
The monster who had chased her the night before was definitely _not_ that same angel.

Her own body surprised her.  
It seemed to have betrayed her.  
The thought of the angel brought tremors to her lips, limbs and torso and left fear festering in her stomach. Yet, at the same time, thinking about her Michael brought tears to her eyes and ignited something hot and longing in her chest.  
What was wrong with her? What had he _done_ to her?

At exactly six fourteen, Cassidy emerged from her bedroom, changed into a pair of loose shorts and a faded blue tank top.  
A cup of tea, some pancakes and a recorded episode of “Only Fools and Horses” helped her to relax back to normality.  
Comforting thoughts began to find their way back into her mind at last. After all, after the incident in the café, she hadn’t seen the angel again. She didn’t see him anywhere near the hospital or in it and she hadn’t seen him anywhere around the house.  
Maybe he had headed back to the museum, fearing that he would be missed?  
  
“Eventually someone else will notice something weird about the statue,” she thought to herself. “Someone will see him move. Someone will finally believe me. Someone will call the police and they can lock it up…”

The relieving, comforting thoughts continued until Cassidy eventually fell asleep on her living room sofa, watching television.   
Her dream was vivid and strange, even in comparison her usual night-time reveries.

She dreamt about the man from the old police box, that day in the graveyard.  
The “Doctor” as he had introduced himself.  
He was standing in front of her, pleading with her to come with him- into the big, blue police box.  
She tried to follow him but she realised that there was an iron manacle around her wrist, keeping her chained to something.

Cassidy turned around, only to see Michael behind her, grinning darkly and holding the end of the chain in his clawed hands. Frightened, she tried to pull away from him but the more she tried to follow the Doctor, the closer to the stone angel she was dragged.  
“ _It’s no use_ ,” she called out to the Doctor. “ _I can’t leave him…I can’t leave…He won’t let me go…”_

She suddenly woke with a start, taking a groggy few moments to take stock of her surroundings.  
She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes and yawning.  
The first thing that struck her was the fact that it was now dark outside. Checking her phone, she blinked realising that it was now just past ten o’clock. She’d been asleep for almost three hours.  
The second thing to strike her was just how quiet it was.  
Cassidy furrowed her brow, realising that the television was no longer on. She stared at the blank screen, trying to remember if she had turned it off before she fell asleep.  
She couldn’t remember falling asleep and therefore she could only assume that she had fallen asleep during the programme…and the television didn’t have an automatic turn-off option…  


BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Cassidy jumped, letting out a cry of shock as her phone suddenly sprang to life, starting to vibrate. She swallowed, trying to calm herself down again as she answered the call.  
“H-Hello?”  
“Cass, it’s Edmund.”  
“Oh…hey…h-how-?”  
“Cass, listen! Listen! The angel statue is missing from the museum!”  
“What? _What?!”  
_ “The angel went missing from the museum just an hour ago. I have no idea how it got out of the exhibition hall but-…”  
Cassidy hung up, dropping the phone.  
Her eyes were wide and her whole body was shaking.  
“ _Calm down,”_ a soft, motherly voice said inside her head. _“Calm down. Just because he’s not there doesn’t mean that he’s he-…”  
_ That was when she heard it.  
The unmistakable sound of a flower-pot being shattered outside.

 

“N-No…”  
For a split second, a thousand different thoughts darted through Cassidy’s mind.  
Only one of those garbled, frightened messages seemed to come through clearly.  
 _Run.  
Doesn’t matter where. Doesn’t matter why. Just run. _

She sprang to her feet, pulling the converse runners at the side of the sofa on and immediately made a bolt for the hallway. She contemplated pulling over the curtains but then decided against it.  
There was no doubt in her mind that the angel was right outside, hunting her and if it couldn’t move when someone was watching him- her best bet at that very moment was to make sure that she could see him coming.

That said, she didn’t want him to know exactly where she was.

Quivering, crying and breathing heavily, Cassidy slowly pressed her back to the wall of the hallway corridor and slid down the wall until she was crouched on the polished wooden floor.  
Through a gap in the door of the sitting room, she could see out of the window. It was too dark to see much further than the lawn, but from what she could make out, it was empty.

Then the pounding started.

The front door suddenly rattled in its hinges, causing her to scream.  
Someone was pounding against it, beating it with a fist. At first she was ready to delude herself that it could just be a very eager delivery man or a concerned neighbour but as the pounding increased in volume and force- she knew that that was no human on her porch.

She covered her ears, too afraid to move.  
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked. “Just leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

After a few minutes, there was a still, empty, eerie silence.  
The pounding had stopped.  
Shakily, Cassidy removed her hands from her ears and wiped her eyes.  
Had he given up?

A jolt shot like an electric shock through her body when she heard what sounded like scratching against wood, coming from outside the front door.  
He was scratching around the porch. He was trying to find a way inside.

She swallowed back against a dry throat, her palms suddenly becoming sweaty and her head becoming terribly warm.  
 _What if he discovered the back door?_

Survival instincts taking over, Cassidy crawled to the kitchen on her hands and knees. She carefully made her way over to the back-door, staggered to her feet and with a trembling hand, turned the key left in the lock.  
She wasn’t sure if it would keep him out but it made her feel slightly safer.

Turning around sharply, her eyes automatically locking on the windows- watching for the angel.  
 _Where the Hell was he now?_  

Her eyes searched the kitchen counter-tops, looking for some kind of weapon.  
Anything she could use to defend herself.  
 _Anything._

Then she saw it.  
On the kitchen table, lay a perfect wild red rose.

Her body went completely numb for a few moments and before she consciously knew it, she was walking over to the table. Slowly, she picked up the rose, examining it with a pounding heart.  
“H-How…?”  


The rose was identical to the other two that someone had left for her.  
But that someone hadn’t been Louisa or Leon.  
It couldn’t have been her mother either.

All of a sudden, Cassidy felt as though she had been engulfed in ice- her body suddenly seizing as she realised with horror…

…there was only one other person in the museum who could have possibly known…or who could have possibly overheard…what her favourite flower was.

Dropping the rose, she turned around, only to see Michael.  
Towering over her.  
Head craned down to look at her.  
Eyes glowering.  
Hands adorned by claws and reaching out for her throat.

Mouth open in a silent roar- displaying his jagged, knife-like teeth.

Cassidy stood beneath him, shaking, defenceless and terrified- her eyes wide open.  
She was too frightened to scream this time.  
He had her trapped. There was no way she could have run. There was no way for her to fight back.  


So Cassidy did the only thing that it was possible for her to do.

She closed her eyes and started to pray.

_“Angel sent by God to guide me, be my light and walk beside me…”_

To her surprise, instead of flesh-tearing claws, she felt a cool-skinned palm touch her bare collar-bone.  
There was a sudden rush of warm air that seemed to consume her body completely.  


 

When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she noticed was that it was raining.

 

  


 

 

 

  


  


  


 

 

 


	7. VII

The first drops of rain were warm as they grazed her cheeks, forehead and thighs. A single drop trailed down her cheek, splashed against her collar bone and slowly trickled down between her breasts.   
Her first, confused thought was to question how exactly it was possible for it to be raining indoors.

Cassidy’s eyes snapped open as a cold wind suddenly drew across her body, causing her to shudder.   
Her surroundings sent a tremor of shock through her, binding her to the spot.   
She was no longer standing on the tiles of her kitchen floor, inside the house that she shared with her mother. She was standing on the pavement of a footpath, outside, facing a huge, towering, red-brick building.

The building seemed to stretch upward endlessly, grazing the rust-coloured sky above and a rusted wrought iron sign with peeling paint just above the huge double-doors proclaimed: **“The Summer Bank Hotel.”**  
On either side of the sign, a granite gargoyle crouched, their sightless grey eyes staring out on to the street ahead.    
Shivering violently, she turned around, looking around herself.   
_“How did I get here?”_ her thoughts numbly echoed.   
Only half-consciously, she brought her fingers to her forearm and gave herself a hard pinch. She winced, having silently asked a stupid question that Pain had answered; no, she was definitely not dreaming.

She turned around slowly, on the spot, slowly taking in her surroundings.  
Mere seconds ago, had she not been standing in her kitchen? Cornered by a stone angel?   
Had he somehow taken her here? Had she been unconscious?   
She could vaguely remember him touching her…and with an unwelcome heat growing in her chest, she could remember that his touch had felt like flesh rather than stone.  
The very thought of her once-dear Michael was enough to set Cassidy’s teeth chattering but as she looked around herself, she could see no sign of him anywhere.    
In fact, aside from the hotel and a few other dilapidated buildings, the street on which she stood was rather barren. Not a single car drove down the road and not a soul walked on the footpath.  
The Summer Bank faced out on to a wide, railed-off river, its choppy waters half-glazed in the amber glow of sundown.

Cassidy did not recognise the area as anywhere that she had ever been before.   


She shivered again.   
The wind was starting to get cooler and the rain was starting to get colder, slowly soaking into the fabric of her tank top and the canvas of her converse.   
Deciding that standing around in this weather, regardless of her apparent whereabouts. It was only when she had jogged up the steps of The Summer Bank that she realised the two huge double doors of the hotel were open.    
“It looks abandoned,” she thought. “Still, standing with a grimy roof over my head in a rain shower is better than standing with no roof over my head in a rain shower.”

Cassidy looked up at some of the grotty windows above her as she reached for the handle. It surprised her to see an old man standing at one of the windows.   
“I was wrong,” she mentally noted, with raised eyebrows. “The hotel may look a little rough around the edges but it’s definitely still in operation.”   
The old man was now pressing a hand to the window and mouthing something at her.   
But with the glass, Cassidy had no idea what he was trying to say.

A rumble of thunder in the distance instantly diverted her attention and she ran straight into the lobby.   
The doors slammed shut behind her and she jumped, almost slipping on the tiles beneath her feet. Her eyebrows knitted with confusion as she slowly looked around what she thought would be a working hotel lobby.

Each of her steps echoed ominously as she walked inside- her footsteps being the only thing to break the thin, eerie silence.   
The place was as deserted as the street had been outside and there was only one source of light in the whole space: a single glass lamp on the unattended reception desk.   
Cassidy noticed that the place was very well decorated; as an archaeologist and general history enthusiast, she could appreciate the very vintage, old-fashioned décor. There was even an old 1920s typewriter on the desk before her, the elevator had an similarly out-dated fold-away door and the black and white framed photographs on the walls made her feel as if she was standing on the set of a Hollywood gangster film.   
That said, even the glamorous comforters and lavish drapes were coated in dust, the plants on either side of the main doors were brown, dead and withered in their pots and only indication that anyone had ever set foot in the room at all was the sheer quantity of scattered luggage bags left randomly strewn about around the waiting area.

“Strange,” whispered Cassidy, half-considering whether or not she should walk up to the desk and actually just ring the service bell.    
Suddenly the lamp on the desk flickered, the shadows around her, stretching and writhing. She froze, feeling a cold draft draw across her again, her heart-rate quickening rapidly.   
Someone or something had definitely moved behind her and for the first time, she realised how creepy the room she was standing in truly was.

 _Unseen to her, a pair of eyes were watching her from the darkness._  
Then another pair joined that pair of eyes.   
Then another.  
And another 

_Watching her._  
Perfectly quiet. Perfectly still.  
Just watching her. 

_Awaiting their orders to move._

Paranoia gnawed at the corners of Cassidy’s mind, fuelled by the fear that was simmering inside of her.   
Forcing herself to be brave, she turned around slowly- to see if someone had followed her into the hotel.

The sight that Cassidy saw her behind her was enough to draw a scream of pure terror from the young woman. This scream was so high-pitched, thin and reedy with fear that it echoed around the lobby, rebounding against the tiles and causing the glass chandelier above her head to shake.

She was no longer alone in the lobby.   
Instead, standing behind her were five angel statues.

Her scream spent, Cassidy’s jaw was still slack and her eyes were wide.   
Each of the angel statues was only a little shorter than Michael but still just as intimidating. In a stark contrast to her own stone seraph’s huge, hulking, masculine body- the five angels who stood before her were all slender, effeminate with vaguely beautiful faces. All of them wore the same kind of Greek chiton that her Michael wore, their wings raised and their arms resting gracefully at their sides.   
However, their blank-eyed stares were focused firmly on Cassidy.  
They had surrounded her in a neat semi-circle, completely blocking the front door and her only chance of an escape.

“A-Alright,” Cassidy murmured softly to herself, remembering that screaming and crying at Michael had done nothing to sway him. Clearly, these statues were also of Michael’s kind, pleading with them would be futile. “And I can’t run either. If I look away, they can m-move…”   
Shakily and gradually, she started to walk backwards.   
Unlike at the museum, she had no idea what she was planning to do or where she was walking to. All she knew was that she needed to get to an exit of some kind as soon as possible.    
Her eyes stung and watered but she was determined not to blink.

“Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink,” she whispered to herself in a motivational mantra. “Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t bl-…”   
She had bumped into something.   
Something large. Something sturdy.   
Something with firm, unmarred skin that was freezing cold.

Before she could even draw a frightened breath, Cassidy turned around sharply and even before she turned, Cassidy knew exactly who was standing behind her.

There was Michael.   
Glaring down at her with an expression that was more terrifying than the monstrous show of teeth and claws that he had confronted her with earlier.   
Like the female angels, his face was completely neutral, expressionless and almost serene. Despite that, his wide, staring eyes radiated nothing but glacial cruelty and his gently parted lips seemed to be just barely suppressing a sneer.

Unable to breathe, Cassidy leapt backwards, starting to move away from him as quickly as she could. Her breath jerked back into her throat with a frightened gasp when she noticed that the angels behind her had moved. They were now reaching for her, their fingers curled to grasp her thin limbs.   
She watched the six of them intently, walking backwards.   
Her mouth had gone dry and her body seemed to only barely capable of moving yet her mind was racing.

She tried her best not to blink but after just a few moments, the brimming tears in her lower lids became too much for her eyes to bear.   
She was forced to blink and in that fraction of a second, the angels had her surrounded. Michael was now in the centre, with the five others flanking him.   
While their faces still bore no emotion, his grey-stone lips- the ones that she had previously kissed- were now curled into a smirk.

“He _is_ just toying with me,” Cassidy thought, finding herself backed against the door of the elevator. “They’re all toying with me. They’re all faster than this...so why haven’t they touched me yet?”

Her body jerked with shock when the elevator behind her let out a ringing sound and the metal grate slowly opened.   
The elevator compartment that she hadn’t called waited for her patiently. It was a little too much of a coincidence for her not to suspect foul play but too frightened to suffer another mental tryst and unwilling to risk pushing her way through the living statues who surrounded her, Cassidy slowly backed into the elevator.

It was only when she was inside of the velvet compartment that she realised just how old-fashioned the elevator was. There were was no proper button panel- just a lever for indicating which floor one wished to travel to.    
Cassidy did not even have to touch this lever for the moment that she was standing in the centre of the compartment, the door closed and the elevator shot upward.

Her heart started to beat in uneven, rhythmless tremors as the doors opened on to a long corridor, lit only by two flickering lights on the ceiling. On either side of the hall-way, polished maple doors lined the walls- presumably the hotel rooms.

Fearing that she had no better alternative, Cassidy started to walk out of the elevator, her damp converse squeaking with each step on the red carpet. She noticed that rather than having number plates on the doors, the doors had name plates instead.

_“T. Robinson…M. Austin…L. Hlukaku…B. O’Leary…D. Befort…”_   
  


Before she could even consider this fact to be strange or unsettling, her attention was pulled by the angel standing at the top of the corridor and she froze.   
The stone angel stood at the wall at the end of the hallway, its hands over its eyes as if crying in anguish.   
“The same way Michael was when I found him,” she thought, looking around for some means of escape. But the angel didn’t appear to be moving even when she looked away; could it even see her?   
Cassidy noticed that a single door ahead of her was ajar, pale light spilling out across darkened floor and splitting the shadows where they lay.

She immediately rushed to it, seeking shelter within but the moment she lay her hand upon the gold handle, her entire body seized where she stood.   
The name-plate on the door read _“C. Albright.”_

There was no doubt.  
The room was intended for her.

Cassidy’s shock had very little time to settle for a split second later, the door right next to hers burst open and a man stumbled out.   
He was young, ashen-faced and his tousled, black hair was slicked to his forehead with the gleaming salt of sweat. He wore a loose white shirt, khaki dress trousers and a set of red suspenders, slung over his shoulders.

“I’ll fucking die! You all hear me, you stone bastards!? I would damn well die rather than stay a part of your fucking feeding grounds here!” he screamed with a heavy Brooklyn accent, his face slowly turning puce. “You won’t take another year from me, you fucking agents of Hell! You can all-…all…!”

The man froze at the sight of Cassidy as she froze at the sight of him.   
His mouth fell slack for a moment before he suddenly fell to his knees, coughing and hacking violently. His chest heaved sporadically and he clutched at his throat, clawing at the protruded jugular vein, his eyes wide and staring.   
“W-Watch…it…” he managed to choke out, pointing.

Cassidy followed his gaze and noticed that the angel at the end of the corridor had moved and was now standing only a foot away from the two of them, its eyes locked on the young man and its long, slender arms at its sides.   
“D-Don’t…” he spluttered, wheezing heavily as he moved closer to the floor, staring at Cassidy. “D-D-Don’t…”

She hesitated for a moment, noticing that the angels from downstairs were now in the corridor too.   
Michael was in their midst, towering above the smaller females and watching Cassidy with the same intent stare. One of his long, muscular arms was outstretched, seemingly reaching out towards her.

Cassidy wanted to keep looking at all of them but at the same time, there was obviously something seriously wrong with the man, now hunched over on the ground at her feet and choking for air.

The angels made no movement to stop her and taking this as her only chance, Cassidy dropped to her knees beside the man, placing her hand on his back.   
“Are you alright?” she asked. “Could you try to sit up for me?”   
The man shook his head, his movements become progressively jerkier but much weaker. His lips had soon turned blue and his eyelids started to droop.

Cassidy’s eyes widened.   
She didn’t need to ask what was wrong with the man.   
He was having an asthma attack: the exact kinds that her mother used to have in the earlier stages of her illness.

“No…no…”  
It wasn’t just the traumatic memories of watching her mother suffocate that flooded her mind but also the fact that this man was possibly the only other human being in this building, that spurred her actions.  
There was no way that she was going to let him die.

She guided his limp form to lie upon the floor, as she had practiced so many times before with her mother. After lifting his throat to open his airway, Cassidy pinched the man’s nose and started breathing into his mouth. His pulse revealed that his heart-rate was only slightly improving and Cassidy immediately started pressing on his chest, weighting his sternum to coax his heart into pumping faster.   
“Come on…come on…”   
The man’s eyes suddenly widened and he sucked in a deep breath, his body spasming as he coughed. Relief surged through Cassidy as air surged through the man’s lungs once more but when he finally came to, it wasn’t gratitude that poured from his lips.

“W-Why? Y-Y-You…? W-why did you damn well do that, woman? Why would you fucking do that?”   
She reeled back in shock but had no time to ponder his callous response to her charitable act.   


The lights above their heads flickered and in those brief seconds of darkness, Cassidy and the man were hauled to their feet. Both grabbed by two of the angels.   
Cassidy winced, letting out a cry at the feeling of the angels’ cold, stone skin pressed against hers. It was much rougher and coarser than Michael’s and it grazed her bare flesh. 

The lights continued flickering and for each second that Cassidy could not see the angels, she found herself being shoved into the open door that had been labelled with her name.   
“What are they doing to us?!” she shouted at the asthmatic man. “What are they doing?! Why are they doing this?!”   
But the man simply hung his head, refusing to answer and giving up on struggling with the angels’ hold.

Cassidy looked to Michael.   
“Why are _you_ doing this?”  
The menacing stone angel was now standing right next to her. His glare suggested that she had done something terribly wrong but he was smirking eerily.   
She had no idea if he could speak or not but at that point in time, she did not need him to say a word- she knew exactly what he was wanted to say.

_“I have you exactly where I want you.”_

The lights in the hallway suddenly died, plunging them all into complete darkness and Cassidy was roughly thrown into the room intended for her.   
The door was slammed shut after her.

Sprawling on the carpet, her shoulders, backside and elbows burning and throbbing from the impact, Cassidy slowly pulled herself to her feet.   
The room was dark but thankfully the room had a single window and some strangled, weak light from the twilight sky illuminated the corner of a wall and the blurry outline of an old standing lamp. 

After a few seconds of fumbling, she managed to turn the lamp on and its bulb cast light across the room.   
It was a typical hotel room but it had the same vintage flavour as the reception had. The wallpaper was an embossed pink and green floral pattern and the carpet was the same faint creamy colour as the curtains. There was a mahogany bureau, a wide wardrobe and two small tables flanking the white double bed. However all the drawers and compartments were empty. 

There was a bathroom with a toilet, sink and bath-tub shower too.   
Everything was clean but also remarkably plain. The only interesting object was an old-fashioned candlestick phone. She recognised it from the “Roaring Twenties” exhibit that the museum had just a few months ago. It had a separate mouth-piece and listening device, connected by a wire. 

Curiously, Cassidy took up the listening piece and held it to her ear.  
“Is this a prop?” she thought. “Or does this old thing actually work?”   
 She could hear a vague whirring sound but she couldn’t tell whether or not it was a dial tone. She sighed, hanging up the listening device once more. It was no use: even if the phone worked, it had no keys or even a rotary-dial. How was she supposed to call someone?

She may have been an archaeologist but she was an expert when it came to statues and sculptures, not household appliances from the past.   
Cassidy paced the room, what felt to her like a thousand times over, until she knew every centimetre of it. Thoughts of escape were running through her mind in a constant, unconscious, monotonous drone like the drumming of hooves.

The door was locked tight from the outside.   
There was an air-vent in both the bedroom and the bathroom but neither were big enough for her to fit her head into, let alone her entire body.   
The window was also stuck tight. That said, the room had to be on what was at least the fourth floor.   
There was no way that climbing out of the window was an option.

Cassidy tried the door for the hundredth time, trying to force the handle down without her plans coming to any kind of fruition.   
She groaned, knuckling her forehead and trying to ease the headache that was splintering behind her temples.   
Did she even really want to get out? Supposing that she got into the hallway, those angel…statue… _things_ …were still out there.

“Michael is still out there,” she thought, trying to peer out of the keyhole. “Isn’t he?”   
The door didn’t have any kind of spy-hole so she couldn’t tell for certain.

The young woman came to sit on the bed, sinking down into the springs of the mattress and running her fingers through her hair.   
Where was she? What was this place? How was she going to get home? To her job? To her mother?   
What were those stone monsters planning on doing with her? 

The whole situation didn’t feel real.   
Yet the pain in her limbs, the soreness in her head and her heart’s constant, quavering, terrified beat told her that it was all really happening.

“Oh God,” Cassidy whispered under her breath, tears starting to seep from her eyes once more. “Oh God, what is this? This is so fucked up. This is so fu-…”

A loud, shrill ringing suddenly jerked her from her despair. She looked around frantically for the source of the ringing and found it to be coming from the candlestick phone.   
She approached it cautiously- as though it was a rabid dog. Slowly, she placed a hand over the listening piece, brought it carefully to her ear and guided the mouthpiece into position.

“H-Hello?”   
“Hello, Cassidy? Cassidy Albright?”   
She was surprised to hear a young man’s British accent answer her but it was certainly not a voice that she recognised.

“Y-y-yes, who is this?”   
The man gave a sigh of what sounded like relief. “Ah, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you, Cassidy. I’ve been trying to find you for three hours now.”

“Yes but who _is_ this? How do you know who I am?”   
“Ah yes! How rude of me. We’ve met before. I’m the Doctor.”   
“…Doctor who?”   
“No, just the _Doctor_ …don’t you…oh, that’s right…we haven’t met properly yet…ahem, um…the funeral! Do you remember meeting me after the funeral? Oh gosh…it would have been …three weeks ago?”

Cassidy blinked, realising. “You…you were the man in the blue police box.”   
“Yes, yes! That’s exactly right! Now, you need to listen to me very carefully, Cassidy.”  

She didn’t know why or how he had managed to call her, all she knew was that this could be her one and only chance of rescue.

 “Doctor…I...you have to help me. I’m trapped in s-some place…a hotel…I d-don’t know where…”   
“Yes, I know. Don’t worry. I know.”   
“Y-You _know_?”   
“Yes and I know all about the angels too. I know that the angel from the museum stalked you, found you and with one touch, transported you to somewhere you’ve never seen before.”

Her eyes widened. “How do you know all of this?”  
“I’ve dealt with these creatures before, Cassidy. I know exactly what they’re capable of.”   
“Creatures? You mean the statues?”   
The man took a deep but hoarse breath. “They’re not really statues, Cassidy. They’re only statues when they’re being directly observed by another living creature…”

“W-what?”   
“They are _quantum-locked_. It’s a fact of their existence. When watched by another creature, their bodies turn to stone…”   
“…so you’re telling me that the statue that I brought to the museum…is actually a creature that comes to life every time someone isn’t watching it?”   
“Precisely. They’re centuries old creatures from far across the galaxy,” he told her, matter-of-factly. “Lonely assassins, they used to be called. Now, they’re more commonly known as Weeping Angels. Of course, when they’re frozen in stone, they’re not really _weeping_ at all. They’re just covering their eyes to prevent themselves from looking at another being of their kind.”   
His tone was casual and completely serious. The lack of any kind of a dramatic tone in his voice indicated that he wasn’t trying very desperately to convince her that all of this was true. He was simply stating a fact.   
As such and after all she had seen, Cassidy could only assume that everything that the man had said so far was true. Not to mention, aside from any other reason, he was the only person who knew where she was and the only one she could trust.

“So…these… “Weeping Angels”…they’re… _aliens_?”   
“Yes, exactly. Aliens who are famed for their extreme ruthlessness and cruelty.”  
Cassidy took a deep breath. “Alright…I understand…but what do they want with _me_?”   
“They’ve made you part of their feeding grounds…for _now._ The females are content to feed off of you for now but the angel that you took to the museum…” The Doctor gave a grunt of annoyance. “Please, please promise me that you’ll try and stay away from him. Don’t do anything that he tries to get you to do and ignore him at all costs.”

“Feeding grounds?!” Cassidy repeated, half-deliberately ignoring the latter half of his statement. “They’re going to _feed off of me?!”_

“Yes... th.-a -..s…’ime…d-…and…years…”   
Cassidy frowned. “You’re starting to break up, Doctor. I can only barely hear you…”  
“..ang…ou….” There was a loud clicking sound and the Doctor’s voice came back clearly again. “The transmission is starting to die. I don’t have much time left, Cassidy.”   
“Doctor, I-!”   
“I just need you to listen for a moment. Please. There are three very important things that you need to remember about dealing with the Weeping Angels. Firstly, don’t turn your back on them and don’t blink, if you can manage it. Their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness and they’re easier to deal with when they’re frozen and you can see them. Watch out though, because they’re wickedly fast…”

Cassidy swallowed. “Yes, yes, I’ve noticed that. What else?”   
“Secondly, even when they are frozen, keep looking at them but don’t look directly into their eyes. Your mind is your best weapon against them. Don’t allow them any access to it.”   
She didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant by that but hearing the line starting to break again, she quickly replied. “Alright, I won’t look into their eyes. What’s the third thing?”   
“Make sure that you don’t have any photographs or drawings of the angels in your room…any image that contains an angel, becomes itself an angel…oh…oh no…”

“What? What is it?”

“It’s them…they’ve noticed our signal…they’re trying to cut me off…”  
“Can’t you stop them?”   
“Not at the moment, Cassidy. I’m going to drop the line but don’t worry, we’re already looking for you. We’ll find you soon. But listen, there is one more thing I must tell you and this is very important. The Angel has sent you back in time. Try to interact with as few things as you can manage…”

Cassidy’s eyes widened.    
 _Back in time?_

“The Angel has…what?!”   
“…Cassidy, I really have to go now but hang in there.”

“What? No! Doctor! Please don’t go…please…they’ll kill me, won’t they?”   
“…No, Cassidy. I promise you that they won’t.”   
“How do you know that? You said that they’re renowned for being cruel…that they want to feed from me…”   
“I know you in the future, Cassidy. You’re not going to die anytime soon.”  
“You…know me…in the…?”   
“Yes, yes…I ‘an’t…expl…I…the line is breaking again...”   
“Doctor?! Please you have to help me. Will you call again?”   
“I promise you, Cassidy…I’ll find you soon and everything will all be alright again…just remember what I told you and stay where you are. Stay right where you are. Don’t try to escape.” She noticed that his voice had ascended from calm and diplomatic to frighteningly urgent and each word was laced with worry. “I…I really wish that I could help you. If I could, I’d take you away from there right now.”  
“...Doctor, what is going to happen to me here?”

“Cassi’…ou..’an…as…and just don’t trust anything he tells you.”   
“What?” Cassidy’s breath started to grow shallow, stopping in her throat and barely permeating her lungs. “Don’t trust anything _who_ tells me?”    


“I’m sorry, but he’s heard us.”  
“D’you m-mean Michael? You mean Michael, d-don’t you?”   
“He’s coming for you, Cassidy. Stay strong.”   
“Doctor? _Doctor!?_ Don’t go!”   
“I…I’m ‘orry, ‘assidy…”   
“ _Doctor!?_ ”

The lamp in the corner of the room suddenly flickered and a cold rush of air swept over her, causing her to tremble.   
“Doctor?” she repeated, only to have nothing but thin silence answer her.   
The line had gone completely dead.

She slowly looked up and her body jerked as she let out a breathless scream.  
The huge, stone, male angel whom she had christened Michael, was standing right beside the bed and towering over her.   
In one of his hands was, what appeared to be a black string. It took Cassidy a few shocked, silent minutes to realise that what he was holding was the wire that connected the phone to the wall: he had torn it out.   


She swiped the corners of her eyes with her thumb, trying to dry them without blinking. She had had enough of crying and she tried to look up at him with defiance.   
“You’re a liar!” she shouted at the figure of stone. “You’re a liar! You fooled us all at the museum into thinking that you were just a normal statue! You…you fooled _me_ …” She swallowed. “But I know what you _really_ are. A weeping angel? Is that it? You’re an alien. You’re a monster! It all makes sense…” Cassidy’s eyes widened as she started to think for this first tie. “You must have tampered with the cameras at the museum and…the disappearances…it was all you!”   
Her breathing had become ragged. “Well you’re in trouble now! Because there’s a man. A Doctor. He’s knows all about you…he’s going to come here and he’s going to…”

Half-drowned in excitement and hysteria, Cassidy had let her eyelids slip and had blinked. The first thing she felt was something cold against her right cheek.   
The stone angel had stooped to her level, so that his eyes were staring deeply into hers. His large, stone hand was now cupping her cheek and holding her head.   
Her lips were quivering, spilling shallow, scared breaths on to Michael’s own smooth, grey ones. His movements were so tender that they frightened her.   
What frightened her most was the fact that he was smiling.   
Not a malign, cruel or cold smile this time.   
It was a gentle, handsome smile…like the one she used to picture on his face whenever she dreamt about him coming to life at the museum.   
She felt sick to her stomach and ashamed of herself as her cheeks started to grow hot and a certain lightness started to flutter in her stomach.  


 _“No,”_ she told herself. _“He’s a monster. He kidnapped you. He’s going to hurt you. Remember what the Doctor said.”_     
“I know what you’re doing,” she whispered shakily. “I don’t trust you at all…I don’t…I…”   
Her eyes were suddenly locked on his.   
His eyes were grey, blank and unmoving but she could feel that he was staring deeply into her own blue, watery eyes. She was so scared and at the same time, didn’t know what to feel. A single, stray tear slipped from the corner of her right eye and slowly trickled down her cheek, rolling across Michael’s thumb in a sparkling bead of moisture...

_“No! Don’t look into his eyes! Remember what the Doctor told you!”_   
  


She looked away from him immediately but in the haste of her actions and panicked, she looked away from him _completely._  
Cassidy felt a harsh, stinging, white-hot pain lash across her cheek. __  
In that split second, Michael had raked his now-clawed fingers down the side of her face, tearing into the vulnerable, soft flesh.  
And all the while, he was still smiling at her.

Cassidy gave a dry sob, tearing her head away from him and clapping a hand to her now-bleeding cheek.   
Without another word, she got up and ran straight into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. She crouched down beside the toilet, crying and fumbling for toilet paper to press against her bloodied face.   
She could hear him outside in the bedroom, moving around. She could hear relentless thudding and scratching but not once, did he pound upon the door as he had done before. She heard the main door to the room open and slam shut but still too scared to even contemplate running outside, she remained in the bathroom.

Cassidy stayed there for what felt like an hour, but might have been- in reality- only fifteen minutes. She tested the taps and found that they dispensed clean, hot and cold water. She also, with muted appreciation, noticed that the bathroom cabinet had small bottles of shampoo, tooth-paste, cakes of paper-covered soap, old-fashioned scented water, a toothbrush and a frilly pink shower cap. She took them out of the cabinet, laid them on the floor, stacked them, counted them, sniffed the bottles, tried on the shower cap and placed them back upon the white shelves once more.   
She cleaned the wound on her cheek with dampened toilet tissue, trying to ignore how wan and pathetic the girl in the mirror looked.   
“The Doctor said that the angel sent me back in time somehow,” she thought numbly. “Is that true? Am I really in another time?”   
Nothing felt real to her at that moment in time.

After a while, she opened the door a fraction and peered out. Finding that the angel was no longer in the room, she walked back into the bedroom. There was no clock in the room but the single window now revealed that it was now night-time.   
Cassidy walked over to the window, looking out into the night sky- inky black and studded with winking, diamond-esque stars. She wondered if anyone else was looking up  at those same stars and had anywhere near the same weight on their heart as her.   
She thought of her mother and hoped that the elderly woman was alright.   
She also managed to console herself that if Michael was here with her, at least he wasn’t anywhere near her mum, her friends or the museum, causing trouble in London.

She blinked, hearing a man’s hacking cough from the wall beside her.   
Realising that it was coming from the other room- the room that the asthmatic man from earlier had been pushed into. The walls must have been hollow enough to allow sound to pass through.   
Not quite sure what she was doing, she slowly rapped her knuckles against the wall, once…and then twice.

“Hello? Sorry, are you alright?”   
The man coughed again, apparently stumbling around the room by the sound of it. Though after a few moments, he responded to her. “Yeah…yeah, I’m alright.”   
He still sounded rather abrasive and irritated, so instinctively, Cassidy tried to make her voice as soothing as possible.

“I…I’m sorry if I offended you earlier.”   
“…you didn’t _offend_ me, kid. You just royally fucked up my plans.”

“It’s just…my mum has asthma…I’ve seen the attacks before. If yours had gotten any worse out there…you probably would have died…”   
He gave a sardonic snort. “That was the idea. I exposed myself to some dust in the carpet. Lay there for a few hours and breathed it right in. Knew my lungs would kick off sooner or later. Just wanted those stone assholes to watch me die.”

Cassidy’s eyes widened. “You were trying to kill yourself? Why?”   
The man gave a dry, humourless chuckle. “Those angel things…whatever the fuck they are…they apparently _feed_ off of your life energy…the longer you live, the more they can eat. I didn’t fancy being a part of their great big buffet much longer…”   
“But…but…” she stammered, shaking her head. “That’s no reason to end your own life. You should put your energy into trying to _escape_.”   
The man was laughing now. “Girlie, I’ve been here for exactly sixteen months and I can already tell you that there is no fucking way out of here. Even when they let us outside, they always find us and they always send us back.” He coughed again before going on. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being here, is that they’ve sorted us into two groups. When you got into your lovely room, girlie, was there an old woman in your bed? Saying that she was you from the future?”

Cassidy pressed her ear a lot more firmly to the wall, feeling the pattern of the flowers starting to embed into her aching, wounded cheek. “No…no, there wasn’t…but why…?” 

The man cut her off with a frighteningly high-pitched snigger. “That means that you don’t live out the rest of your life here. You don’t die here as an old woman.”   
“So…I could escape?”   
“Weren’t you fucking listening? You don’t escape, kid. The stone bastards kill you for disobedience or to make room for more people or you kill yourself first, before they can…” 

Cassidy took a step back from the wall, walking away and over to the bed.   
She couldn’t hear the man anymore and truthfully, she didn’t want to hear anymore that he had to say.   
She took off her shoes and slowly climbed into the bed, each movement in the purgatory between lethargic and automatic. She was tired- physically and mentally.   
She let her head sink into the pillow and just as she closed her eyes, she made a promise and a wish.

She promised herself that the man’s grim prophecy would not come true. The Doctor had said so. She was _not_ going to die here.

She wished that when she next opened her eyes, she would be in her bed at home at this whole nightmare would be over.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor slammed the transmitter down, frowning so deeply that worry-lines entrenched his milk-white forehead.   
He looked to Clara. “They cut me off.”   
His companion, in turn, looked down at the TARDIS console, her eyes glancing over the screens. “Did you manage to trace the call, Doctor?”

The Time Lord shook his head. “No…no, the TARDIS couldn’t pick up on her time signature- the essence that is left in the time stream when a being passes through. I know that she’s somewhere in 1923 but the question is _where_?” He groaned. “We need a stronger time signature.”

Clara Oswald furrowed her brow. “What about the time signature from the angel?”  
The Doctor nodded, beckoning for her to follow him out of the TARDIS as he shrugged his long trench coat on to his shoulders. “My thoughts exactly. We need to see if we can pick up on the angel’s time travelling trail…” He brandished his sonic screwdriver, wiggling it under her nose before popping it back into his pocket. “…and to do that, we need to find out where Cassidy Albright was when he abducted her…”    
The duo stepped out of the blue police box and Clara noticed where they had landed for the first time. She looked across the busy London street, scanning the museum’s majestic front façade.

“So we’ll be starting at the museum? Her workplace and the one place we know she’s definitely been?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow up at her gangly companion.   
“Quick and clever as always, my dear Clara,” the Doctor praised with a wink. “Inspired by information sourced by you, yourself and the magic of Google.”

The two of them crossed the street, Clara having to take at least five quick, high-heeled steps to meet the Doctor’s great, sweeping strides.   
When they got into the museum, the first and most outstanding point of notice was that an entire area of the entrance hall had been marked off by yellow police tape.

“Well,” Clara said, bemused. “That looks like a good place to start.”   
The Doctor nodded and the two of them headed over to the tape. They were just about to lift the tape and walk right on through but they were promptly stopped by a tall, bespectacled young man with loose, almost white-blonde hair. 

“Sorry, no entrance here today,” he told them, lifting a hand. “If the police tape wasn’t a good enough indication for you; this area is off limits to all museum-guests for the time-being…”  
The Doctor eyed the clipboard in the man’s hand, taking his own black-framed glasses from his pocket and slipping them on.

“Yes, well, we are not museum guests, sir,” he proclaimed, flicking the psychic paper in front of the young man’s eyes before folding it away. “I am Doctor John Smith of the historical research centre of the Isle of Man and this is Doctor Clara Oswald of the national historical…archaeology department of Ontario, Canada.” He adjusted his glasses, peering down the railed-off hallway. “Why ever is this area off-limits? Looks nice and safe to me.”

The young man frowned. “There’s been an art-theft that the police are still investigating. A statue was stolen last night.” He sighed. “And it’s now my duty to catalogue every other object in the museum to make sure nothing else has been stolen…so if there’s no other way I can help you…”  
“Actually there is!” the Doctor said quickly, clapping a hand on his shoulder to stop him from leaving.   
“Yes, ah…we were actually hoping to talk with one of Ernst Hewitt’s apprentice archaeologists,” Clara continued. “A Miss Albright? Is she here today?” 

The young man blinked, turning around immediately. “Cassidy?” He shook his head, suddenly looking very, very worried, indeed. “No…she didn’t show up for work this morning. I’ve been trying to call her all day but…”

The Doctor squeezed the young man’s shoulder, cutting across him. “I just realised that we never asked. How rude of us. What’s _your_ name?”    
The young man looked up at him, over the rim of his glasses. “Edmund. Edmund Potter. I’m an archaeologist in Cassidy’s department.”

The Doctor grinned widely, raising an eyebrow and lowering his voice.   
“Well, Mr Potter. I do believe that you’re as eager to find Cassidy Albright as we are and…if you’re willing to take a little time off work, I think you can help us do exactly that.” 

 

  


 

  


  
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**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed so far. Chapter 2 will be up momentarily.  
> Thank you for reading!  
> Don't worry, sweeties, the Doctor will be making his appearance soon.
> 
> (Before anyone makes an accusation of plagiarism, I am Angel of Shadow and Snow on Fanfiction.net. :) I'm just re-posting it here to see what a wider part of the fanbase think)


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